Help with cushings please?

[kellyeaton]

Hi have just found out that my 20yr t/b has cushings she has no clinic sighns but she has lammi at the moment witch she has never had before so had her blood tested and it came back cushings. The vets said now she will have to go on to pergilode can people give me any good or bad things about this drug how it works etc etc ? thanks!x

 

[Lucy_Nottingham]

Its pergolide.

It is a dopamine agonist which acts to compensate for the lack of dopamine (a neurotransmitter) acting on the pituitary gland.
Cushings is due to a pituitary gland tumour (normally benign!) which leads to excess hormone secretition.
Dopamine normally inhibits these secretions when normal levels are reached, but due to a lack of dopamine it is not controlled (hence leads to the cell mutiplication)
Pergolide compensates and helps reach normal action level of dopamine and so reduces hormone secretions.

The lami is due to high levels of cortisol in the system and so pergolide will reduce the levels of cortisol and so reduce the risk of laminitis.

However, cushings is not curable, but it is manageable! and pergolide is the best thing for this.

When first given the horse can become anorexic, so the dose will be reduced for a week and then gradually increased back to the wanted starting dose.

it is a good drug

well done for catching the disease before many other clinical signs show! but just ensure that your horse is now on a lami/senior diet as well as the pergolide to help minimise the risk as much as possible for laminitis (as this is often the most debilitating clinical sign of cushings)

Good luck

feel free to pm if you have any other questions or il try to keep an eye on here

 

[Azabache]

I had a similar experience to you in that my pony had laminitis at this time of year which led to him being diagnosed with cushings. He went straight onto pergolide which as Lucy said, helps to control the disease, but sadly it can't cure it. It was a few years ago mine had it but I was told that the pergolide would only be effective for 2-3 years. Check with your vet though as this was a few years ago. Again as Lucy said, you have to treat your horse as a laminitic, however it is not grass necessarily that will trigger it. We managed his grazing extremely tightly so he never really got it in Spring, but watch out for Sept / Oct as the grass has a second spurt then and caught me out once. My boy would often come down with laminitis when stabled, but as I got familiar with the warning signs I was able to nip it in the bud a lot quicker. Every horse is different, but with my pony laminitis would often follow a mild bout of colic. (he had a very sensitive tummy but again I got good at knowing the signs so the colic never came to anything).
The other thing to watch out for is abcesses in their feet as their immune systme is affected and so often become very susceptible to abcesses and wounds taking a long time to heal. I became quite a dab hand at pouliticing and wound management!
Coming back to the pergolide, for a while and the risk of laminitis was lower, I would reduce the dose and then increase it when he was have a low, obviously with my vet's agreement.
Get into a routine of frequently checking his feet, coronet bands and pulses so that you can detect any early signs of laminitis / abcesses. At the beginning I did miss the signs, but with time, experience and talking to others, you'll know what to look for and how to deal with it. I still managed to take my pony out for a good gallop right up until the end. Good luck and please feel free to ask any questions here or pm me x