Gastric Ulcers? Also in veterinary...

[perryhillbay]

I am wondering whether this might be what is wrong with my mare, and wondered about people's experiences of the condition - symptoms, time taken to treat the problem, total cost of treating the condition (including gastro guard etc.)

I am going to arrange for a vet to come and see her as she is so docile 95% of the time, but her recent behaviour leads me to believe that she must be trying to tell me something... She is inconsistent in her work, sometimes super, other times very difficult and stressy. She has started walloping the walls of her stable at night. She is stabled away from other horses as she gets mardy about them so there is no obvious reason for this - last night she has kicked so much, her hind shoe has come off and in mangled. She can be very funny about her girth being done up... sometimes she will just pull faces, at the extreme times, she has been known to sink to the ground. She has had all the obvious things done - excellent farrier, back checked and treated, teeth done, new saddle, fitted by an excellent saddler... etc. I do not think that kissing spines is likely as although she can be stressy to ride, she has never bucked or reared or bolted or done anything like that.

I am so upset by her behaviour. It must be something...

 

[bluehorse]

It could well be ulcers, or it could be kissing spines...or both!

I have been having problems with my 6yo - very very girthy (although not sinking to the ground as you describe), and very resistant and inconsistent when being schooled and asked to work in an outline. Perfectly happy to lump along with his head in the air though!

I had him scoped for ulcers and found he had grade 2-3 ulcers so he was treated with gastrogaurd. The vet said an improvement should be seen very quickly (within 72 hours) if it was the ulcers causing his problems, but there was no real improvement although he did start to look a bit better and seemed more perky in general.

So I took him to the vets for a full check of his back etc and it turns out he has kissing spine too - mild, but still kissing spine. He has had the operation and is now in week 3 of his recovery period

Have you also thought about maybe a problem with her ovaries - I know nothing about this at all (gelding owner!) but I know there have been threads on here in the past about it, perhaps it would be worthwhile doing a search...

So don't rule out anything and make sure you investigate all avenues - as you obviously realise there is usually a reason for a horse being unhappy under saddle, but there could be more than one problem....

Good luck!