Gastric ulcers and treating them??

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MissDeMeena

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As the title says really..
Obviously i know about Gastro Gard, (and its cost)
Am i right in thinking that you just use Gastro Gard in the week running up to an event, and then during the event, but you don't have to use it all the time..
Do you have to keep the horse on a supliment in its feed everyday just to keep things on a level??


I just have a worrying feeling that Polly may be suffering from then... as i said in my comp.. report, she came out of racing because she wouldn't eat, and got to the stage when she wouldn't even go up the gallops...
Since i've had her i've not done alot with her bar feed her.. i've been told that gastric ulcers die down when the horse isn't in much work..
Anyhow, as i said, she went to her first party/hunter trial on Sunday.. and i'm not too keen on how she looks this morning.. at first we thought it might be very mild colic, but i don't think it's that.. she has the runs and is farting alot and just looks uncomfortable/like she has tummy ache...
As this is the first more active thing i've done with her, could this be bringing something to light again, and that she infact had gastric ulcers when she was racing.....
 
try gastragold brilliant stuff all the racehorse trainers use this! she will need to be on this for a while but has brilliant results and there has been a study on this my ex racers does not like to eat to much hay so changed to haylage this has made a huge differnce to him
 
97% of racehorses have them, so it's not a bad guess....

The trouble is unless you treat them and eliminate them first, they will flare back up from what I understand every time the work increases.

Is there any way you could insure her for a nominal sum of money just to cover vets fees, then get her scoped in a couple of weeks once the cover has kicked in? Shouldn't cost more than £20-£30 a month and would mean you could get it properly sorted...and considering the only supplements which the vet told me worked (neigh-lox was the one he recommended) work out at over £1 a day, it'd be worth doing I think?
 
Your vet should be able to take a fresh sample of faeces and have it analysed for any traces of blood which would indicate gastric inflammation or irritation - costs about £20 so much cheaper than scoping. If there is a lot of blood present then it would be worth scoping. We have a couple of horses which have come to us with ulcers and we maintain them on Equine America UGard Plus & V-Biotic which is far far cheaper than GastroGard as just as effective.
 
I would involve the vet and he would advise.

I didn't know they could test faeces. You can scope and/or get bloods done - more expensive than £20 though!

Vet should recommend treatment.

I was recommended neigh-lox through Saracen, it might be worth giving them a call or email.

Good luck
 
Funny I read your post the other day and thought "I wonder..."

Well Ive had no end of grief with ulcers this season! Bacterial and feed related ones! Basically the only way to get rid of themn is the gastroguard. All the supplements (Neigh lox etc.) are only effective at keeping ulcers away!

Try having 2 haynets up with different types of hay in each, low starch feeds like winergy and corn oil is excellent for healing... Slippery Elm seems to work too! 3 meals a day as opposed to 2, etc etc. But basically she needs to be scoped to see what type of ulcers she has, and then gastroguard is the only effective way of getting ride of them unfortunately
frown.gif


Appareantly the patent on Gastroguard runs out in about 2 years though, soi chin up, after that it will get alot cheaper!!!
 
my ex-racer suffered with ulcers and I had him on the equine america u-guard which really helped initially, he was never flourishing or putting on condition. For the last 15 months I have used different products from the silver lining herbs range with their advice and at 11 yrs old he has blossomed, I have kept enough condition on him to show, and this autumn he is still improving whereas he would normally drop off weight quickly as soon as he changes his coat.
It is very important to keep a constant supply of fibre, I find he eats haylage much more readily than hay, he also used to get dehydrated very easily because of the runny droppings and was very fussy aboout his water.
PM me if you would like any further info.
 
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