Gastric Ulcers - How Long Before An Improvement is Seen

[vanrim]

My mare was scoped and gastric ulcers diagnosed. She has been on Peptizole (Omeprazole) for 16 days (28day course) and is still refusing to go into trot. From a ridden aspect there is no improvement - my vet said I should see an improvement within the first week. Has anyone else's horse taken a long time for ulcers to heal?

 

[Troggy]

My mare was scoped and gastric ulcers diagnosed. She has been on Peptizole (Omeprazole) for 16 days (28day course) and is still refusing to go into trot. From a ridden aspect there is no improvement - my vet said I should see an improvement within the first week. Has anyone else's horse taken a long time for ulcers to heal?

Mine took about 3 weeks to show a slight difference, he required 2 months of full dose GastroGard and 1 month weaning off

 

[Scatterbrain]

Your horse may well have hindgut ulcers too. If she has, her hindgut will be causing her a lot of pain. The peptizole/gastroguard only treats the stomach ulcers. You need to feed an additional treatment alongside to target the hindgut.

Bear in mind that ulcers can quickly return once treatment stops. One of mine is very prone to them so he is treated daily with a maintenance product for his stomach, plus ranatidine to help reduce acid production, to prevent them returning.

 

[mega spoilt ponies]

My horse is on month 3 of peptizole and is still showing no improvement symptom wise (also been to RVC to rule out lameness/pain) he is being scoped for the 3rd time on Monday so fingers crossed there is improvement although from his behaviour I am sceptical. The length of recovery often depends on location and degree of ulceration

 

[vanrim]

I have spoken to vet today after reading that bacteria may cause ulcers in which case antibiotics are needed too. She has actually been on Peptizole for 3 weeks now and no change in her ridden behaviour. She will be scoped again in a week so I will have a better idea then if they are healing. I am at my wits end with this.

My horse is on month 3 of peptizole and is still showing no improvement symptom wise (also been to RVC to rule out lameness/pain) he is being scoped for the 3rd time on Monday so fingers crossed there is improvement although from his behaviour I am sceptical. The length of recovery often depends on location and degree of ulceration

 

[vanrim]

Yes I think I need to discuss hind gut ulcers with my vet.

Your horse may well have hindgut ulcers too. If she has, her hindgut will be causing her a lot of pain. The peptizole/gastroguard only treats the stomach ulcers. You need to feed an additional treatment alongside to target the hindgut.

Bear in mind that ulcers can quickly return once treatment stops. One of mine is very prone to them so he is treated daily with a maintenance product for his stomach, plus ranatidine to help reduce acid production, to prevent them returning.

 

[vanrim]

Thanks for the post. It is interesting to know that improvement is not always that quick.

Mine took about 3 weeks to show a slight difference, he required 2 months of full dose GastroGard and 1 month weaning off

 

[vanrim]

Has anyone got any idea what caused ulcers in their horse? My horse doesn't get any hard feed only alfalfa chaff, balancer, hay and daily turnout. She is living out 24hrs since ulcer diagnosis. I would have considered her very low risk.

 

[mega spoilt ponies]

Mine was stress- climbed out of a trailer backwards. Result was grade 4 glandular ulcers around the pulorus (where foals usually get stress ulcers) they are seriously hard to get rid of!

 

[Elf On A Shelf]

Having worked with every ulcer treatment going the only one that worked with any great significancy and in a short space of time was Gastroguard. Petizole did absolutely jack all on the 3 horses it was used on to help get rid of the ulcers so we put them onto GG, got the ulcers under control and now keep them on half a syringe of Peptizole a day maintenance dose. This seems to be working so far. Ulcer Gold works well enough but again, not quite as quick at showing results as GG.

 

[mega spoilt ponies]

I was under the impression that Gastrogard and peptizole are exactly the same thing (i.e. same active amount of omeprazole in both)??

 

[LittleCob]

I don't know how true this is but my vet told me that although GG and Peptizole contain the same ingredient, the actual coating used to deliver the omeprazole (not sure how that works with a syringed gel) is different as the GG people still have a patent on that. She wasn't convinced that the coating was effective enough to get the omeprazole to the right area as all the trial data was carried out on horses that had been fasted so had nothing in their systems and therefore digestion was quicker than normal.

Or something along those lines (can you tell I'm not a vet haha).

Either way GG didn't work for us at all. The only thing that has worked so far is Antepsin, which as far as I know is still out of stock, although I really need to call the vets to check.

 

[mega spoilt ponies]

That's really interesting thanks, I thought that the GG patent had lapsed, hence the introduction of Peptizole from another manufacturer. If people are finding that they are having luck with one rather than the other that may explain some of the issues I have been having!

 

[LittleCob]

Yep she said the patent had lapsed but not the patent for the actual coating.

 

[Elf On A Shelf]

I don't know how true this is but my vet told me that although GG and Peptizole contain the same ingredient, the actual coating used to deliver the omeprazole (not sure how that works with a syringed gel) is different as the GG people still have a patent on that. She wasn't convinced that the coating was effective enough to get the omeprazole to the right area as all the trial data was carried out on horses that had been fasted so had nothing in their systems and therefore digestion was quicker than normal.

Or something along those lines (can you tell I'm not a vet haha).

Either way GG didn't work for us at all. The only thing that has worked so far is Antepsin, which as far as I know is still out of stock, although I really need to call the vets to check.

I forgot about the Antepsin! That stuff is pretty instantaneous (12-24 hours) whenever we have used it. But we don't use it often due to it's withdrawal period.

If you compete under Jockey Club style rules (Not sure whether the FEI follow the same style rules for drugs) the Omeprazole has a 72 hour withdrawal period - just incase you needed to know such a thing lol!

 

[Claireyb86]

Hi,
Has anyone with pyloric ulcers managed to actually get rid of them? If so how long did it take on GG? My mares r prove no tricky to get rid of. Two months GG and sucrobest and they had come down in grade but not healed. Two months not treatment on advice of vet and no change if anything marginally worse. So now on cytotec and GG for another two months. Only full dose of GG for a week and then a quarter dose for the rest of the two month period before rescope. I have to say I'm not feeling hopeful!
Any success stories or advice would be greatly appreciated
Thanks

 

[vanrim]

I managed to get 2 horses clear of grade 3/4 pyloric ulcers within 4 weeks on GastroGard and corn oil and 24hr turnout. HOWEVER I know that I had removed the cause of the ulcers which was a pelleted lucie nut and a soaked lucie cube. The horses were scoped clear after treatment and scoped clear again 3 months later. I think you need to do lots of online research and figure out what is causing the ulcers in the first place. Facebook has a good page called "horses with ulcers" where you will get a lot of help. According to vet Richard Hepburn an EGUS specialist, glandular ulcer causes "could be physical (coarse alfalfa), toxic (drugs or plants), bacterial or physiological (altered mucus constituents). It is likely that several different causes contribute to this failure. Treatment with omeprazole alone is much less effective than in squamous disease (25% healed after 28-35 days); instead a combination of omeprazole and the mucosal protectant sucralfate is used, leading to a 68% healing rate." On the Facebook forum some vets have used antibiotics with success and a combination of Omeprazole and Ranitidine. It really is worth a look.

 

[Claireyb86]

That's great thank you I shall join the facebook group.
I listened to a podcast with Richard Hepburn last week on ulcers and got some really helpful info too. The thing is with my mare she had a lami bout just before ulcers appeared so always thought it was the Bute but since they haven't cleared I am now wondering if it's her feed as she was put on dengie hi Fi molasses free, soaked hay and a supplement so I am trying to do some elimination to find out what it is. I have taken her off th dengie hi Fi n put her on Alfa a (also dengie) so will try this for another wee while and seee how she goes. What did u feed ur horses with ulcers?
Corn oil sounds great but my vet advised against it incase she puts condition on.
Thanks