Help with cushings please

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delly&zo

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Hi all, can somebody tell me what to expect with this disease ? my beloved mare has been diagnosed this week with ppid. The vet said it was early stages as her test results were quite low. Being a paranoid mum pays off sometimes. She's had her first dose of Prascend today, are there likely to be side effects ? i am interested to know other peoples stories.
 
well done for getting tested early....you may find she goes off her food at the beginning of taking the tablets , it can last for about 2 weeks but once she is used to them she should be fine. my mare is a VERY fussy eater so i give hers in a carrot or a slice of wholemeal bread over the stable door so i am absolutely sure that she has taken the tablet and not spat it out in the stable. mine was diagnosed in august and had a high reading of 172 which went down to 96 and then gone down to 49 and she is having another blood test next week and fingers crossed she has gone down even more...my mare didnt lose her coat and was a little grumpy so i knew something was wrong..she changed back to her normal self after about 6 weeks on the tablets and is now feeling VERY well!!!!!! this was her last week
splashfeb2012.jpg
 
Ah she looks in fine shape ! Arizona's result was 46, she's been lame on and off for weeks, the first vet wasn't sure what the problem was, a week of bute and she seemed better. I mentioned cushings because of her puffy eyes , possibly she said. that was that. Then Zo went lame again so i called the farrier, he said she has laminitis ( no obvious symptoms tho).Next day i called an equine vet , ordered two weeks box rest and took blood for the cushings, got the results yesterday. Hence, first dose today, not sure what kind of bill to expect, been sent 160 tablets plus call out bute jab and blood test, think i'd better get some overtime in ! Has your mare had any lameness, does she have special diet, Arizona's a good doer she just has a handful of simple systems chaff, high fibre nuts with carrot/apple .
 
mine has not had laminitis :D fingers well and truly crossed!!!!!!!, her lameness issues are soft tissue damage in her feet... she will be 21 next month and she is still a bit of a nutter, i ride 6 days a week at the moment, just hacking, and when the ground gets hard i cut this down but try and do at least 3 days to keep her weight down and keep her sane. at the moment, i feed half a scoop of happy hoof, a measure of formula4feet and half a scoop of soaked speedibeet in the evening. she has a small haynet of haylage for breakfast and whatever is left she has for the night together with a hay net which can be between 8 and 12lbs(depending on how much haylage is left). once they are out 24/7 she will just have a handful of happy hoof and a measure of formula4feet and no speedibeet,hay or haylage.....i have owned her for 10 years and hope for a good few more!!!!
 
My 21 year old got diagnosed with cushings last November after 3 days of mild laminitis and was tested straight away and put onto pergolide. Managed to catch it very early as our vet is a firm believer in cushings being the hidden cause for numerous problems. The tablets definitely did make him slightly depressed and he lost his appetite so he just stood in the field looking a bit sorry for himself but this disappeared after 4 or 5 days. On the tablets he has gone back to his normal incredibly cheeky self but still does his 'down' days but no different to any horse. He now just gets treated as a laminitic prone pony so has safe and sound feed to top him up in the winter and wears a muzzle as soon as the field looks green:rolleyes:
 
Hi OP, my Shetland was the same as yours. No obvious signs, but kept getting footy even though year on year he was being muzzled and restricted for longer. I asked for the Cushings test and the vet was surprised.
It's recommended you retest after 6 weeks to make sure the dosage is right (also may be worth having a liver check as Prascend isn't good if liver function is poor -'don't panic about the liver check, my pony had borderline results but we re-checked at his next blood test)
Regards frequency of blood tests, after the 6 week re-check it's recommended October and March. I plan to go yearly as my pony has levelled out at 1 tablet.
Also,'I'd suggest checking how much your vets are charging for 160 tablets.
My vet charges £211, but I can get it online for £138 plus a prescription of £12 from my vet. They will sell you the tablets in lowers numbers so may be worth getting enough to tide you over until an online order can be secured (unless your vet can source cheaper than my rip off vet!)
Finally, if your horse continues to be footy, may be worth having an EMS test (equine metabolic syndrome), as this requires a different set of mess - again don't worry about this.
My Shetland has been stable, continues his normal routine, including Hayledge (has a dust allergy somcant have Hay, and won't eat anything soaked)
Key thing is that your horse has many normal happy years, and there are probably more horses out than undiagnosed than we realise.
Moving forward, established horses can have lower immunity, so keeping stress down, regular teeth checks, and worm counts instead of worming are recommended
 
delly&zo said:
Hi all, can somebody tell me what to expect with this disease ? my beloved mare has been diagnosed this week with ppid. The vet said it was early stages as her test results were quite low. Being a paranoid mum pays off sometimes. She's had her first dose of Prascend today, are there likely to be side effects ? i am interested to know other peoples stories.
Click to expand...

Join this free Yahoo group of over 10000 members

http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/EquineCushings/
 
I'd second the suggestion of joining the email group. Also, Jackie Taylor's "metabolic horse" email group on yahoo is very active and informative.

Also, worth checking out the Prascend website: http://www.prascend.co.uk/

They have several useful pages of info with short video clips on there.

Also, this is a document from Liphook's website. It's mainly about how to test for PPID etc, but there's a really useful graph at the bottom of page 1 which shows how ACTH (hormone) fluctuates during the year, and how large the fluctuation is in PPID horses. This is really important to Cushing's owners, because the horses are likely to be more susceptible to laminitis when ACTH levels are high, so it'll give you an idea of the most risky months. Plus, you'll see there's the biggest difference between "normal" and Cushing's horses in the autumn, so blood testing at this time to check ACTH levels (or to check for Cushing's at all) shows the clearest distinction between normal and Cushing's.

Sarah
 
Thanks everyone for your replies, Zo has gone off her tea already only day 2 of tablets ! She's eating her hay ok though, i think she's fed up with being in and her tea tasting gross . We're only on day 5 of 14 bless her. She's normally a handful but seems so sad and quiet.
 
I asked that question of them about 2 years ago and Dr K said it was ok then, don't know if there has been any further problems since but I never had a problem feeding them together except....
My gelding was cut at age four and so he is quite hormonal anyway, so I thought at the time that his uncaracteristic bad behaviour and bellowing when the neighbouring mares went out of sight was down to the CTB or Agnus Castus, so I stopped it.
I did try feeding it to him again about a year later and had the same reaction with him, but that's my boy all over, he never conforms to anything normal, he has to be different:(
 
My mare was diagnosed last September, slight bout of laminitis led to the testing...her first reading wasn't too high but she didnt cope with the Peroglide very well and we had a terrible period of depression that lasted a few weeks and did concern the vet.

However she is now only on half a 1mg tablet and coping very well - she is being re tested today actually so it will be interesting to see how the readings come out after 3 months of the half doseage.

She is now looking fab and feeling very well - I have never known her to be so full of beans. She's 20!

I'm not looking forward to the spring grass as she also suffers from COPD so I am reluctant to muzzle her a) because of the restriction around her nostrils and b) it stresses her which is not good for the Cushings itself.

However other than that, she leads exactly the same life as she did before.

Don't despair, everyone on here is really helpful and supportive and there's loads of info on the sites people have recommended.
 
Ah you must let me know how the reading comes out. I had to ring the vet again today as Zo has developed a rattle and has heave lines visible, and now i've just read your mare has copd :eek: please no ! The vet has given more medication to open up her airways as she has another 7 days of box rest to go. ( am soaking hay & putting it on the floor) Problem is she's not eating much, she took the bute for the first week, she took the prascend nicely for the first 4 days ( until this morning) and now i've got this blasted powder to add to the mix i drizzled some molasses over tea tonight , she ate some and left the rest, hopefully it will be gone in the morning. If not i'll have to use a syringe i suppose.
 
I hand feed the Prascend in the morning - it's funny, she won't eat it in a feed but will eat it out of my hand! I have problems with getting powder eaten too, mine has a small amount of hifi-lite and the teeniest sprinkling of hi fibre cubes seems to do it - without the cubes she won't touch!
 
My chap was diagnosed in Autumn 2007 due to getting laminitis, having FAILED a Cushings test that summer. He's still going strong, will be 27 in May. He loves his work & keeps the yard in check with his various whinnies & other demanding behaviours!
Pye has pergolide (drug in Prasend but that didn't exist 5 yrs ago). I too get mine on prescription from the vet. Shop around as prices vary ENORMOUSLY & if you can get to know a particular vet then you'll be able to persuade them to give you bigger and bigger prescriptions to save on prescription writing and dispensing charges.
Pye has Cush-X and homeopathy (Global herbs C-Aid) as well as his pills. His immune system has been poor for years, with COPD & sweetitch but has got worse as he got older, that is until I started giving him Hilton Herbs Equimmune. I also leave a light on in his stable until 10pm each night. [science bit:- The affected gland is controlled by the amount of daylight - so when days are short they need lots of fur and long days need summer coat. Pituitary gland also produces reproductive hormones so mares only season in spring/summer. TB breeders use lights to get the mares to come into season earlier so I thought it might affect coat growth... In my sample of just one it makes a huge difference. Pye gets clipped in November & his coat doesn't regrow at all until Feb. HE still has 3-4 coats a year but they're much more normal.]
Re pills... Pergolide dissolves in water (takes about 3 hours) then mixes with feed & eaten no problem. DOn't know if same applies to Prasend. You could also try Badminton Fibre Plus NUggets - soaked to a mash. I can hide all sorts of medicines in that mush. Very few horses can resist the temptation of nuggets. Pye's teeth aren't great now so he gets nugget mash for his feeds now. For the 1st time in his life he's become really possessive over his food. He LOVES it.
Keep a diary of your horse's health - including things you know how to deal with so don't bother a vet about. Then you'll be able to see if there's a slow downward trend or good long steady phase etc etc
Good Luck. Once you become more familiar with it Cushings just becomes a part of your every day routine - lucky pony to have a caring Mum
 
Thanks for that, I don't think Zo feels lucky right now she doesn't trust anything i try and feed her ! The prascend is fine stuffed in a carrot ( a biro lid is perfect for scooping out a tunnel to shove the tablet in !) the bute is a no no, and now she's had a rattly nose from being cooped up so we have the ventupulmin ?? to add to the mix. The vet came back today, to see if she's sound, he was pleased she seems better ,in fact she was a liitle bit wired doing the whole trotting up thing, and as she has a history of jumping fences ( the one's that divide fields) he suggested sedalin, he said give her the whole lot then wait 40 mins before i turn her out, most got spat back out so i didn't think it would have much effect. How wrong was i, i've never seen a horse so stoned, her eyelids were so heavy she didn't quite know what to do with herself in the end she came back in with a pile of hay. I didn't like seeing her like that. Fingers crossed she'll be good in the morning when i turn her out. Plus she had her booster today while he was out, poor little mare has had so many drugs the last two weeks, on top of that she's taken a chunk of skin/hair off her face somehow in the stable a couple of nights ago.:( i think i'm up to about £500 + vets fees in two weeks . Good job i love her :D
 
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