Inflammatory lung problems

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Grey_Eventer

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My horse has been on steroids and ventipulmin (highest dose possible) for 1 week now and after no improvement (ventipulmin for 2 weeks) we scoped him... to cut the story short the vet couldn't see into his lungs because the mucus was so thick and she could hardly get a tract wash as it wouldn't come out.
It was sent off for tests and the cell count came back as 76000...its meant to be below 1000... I think that just shows how bad it is...
so not only is my horse a write off from eventing because he doesn't like hard ground hes now also a write off for team chasing and possibly...great.
Does anyone know where i can get a nebuliser (sp?)
and any other ideas? Basically he has to cough up the crap thats in his lungs..
Feeling slightly disheartened..
 
Hi, I hope your horse gets better.
My horse also struggels with his lungs. A vet said to try and give him Lungwort (Pulmonaria officinalis) in his feed as this could help reduse the thickness of the mucus in the lungs...

I feel it has helped, I don't have to give him as much Lomudal and Flutide in the nebuliser as I did before.
 
Cathrine said:
Hi, I hope your horse gets better.
My horse also struggels with his lungs. A vet said to try and give him Lungwort (Pulmonaria officinalis) in his feed as this could help reduse the thickness of the mucus in the lungs...

I feel it has helped, I don't have to give him as much Lomudal and Flutide in the nebuliser as I did before.
Click to expand...

did you buy or make your nebuliser? I was having a browse and they are about £700 :o if you made it...how?! lol! and where do you get hold of the lomudal and flutide?
Thanks :)
 
Do they know why your horse is having an inflammatory response or are they still testing?
Four years ago mine was shipped off to the vet hospital for a loss of performance work up due to wind noise and it turned out he had inflammation of his lungs caused by allergies. Ventipulmin didnt touch it, steroids did the trick but was around 8 weeks. I now keep him on equine america coff-less and he is great, in his 3rd season BE (was a 5yo when diagnosed) and easily storming round the xc inside the time. I poss keep him a little fitter than he needs to be but thats just my personal preferance.
If its allergies its relatively easy to manage so i would be trying to find out why the inflammation is there and giving the steroids longer to work.
 
As regards nevubilser - forget the equine ones, they are far too expensive. Go to Boots or similar and buy one of the baby ones. They will ft comfortably over one nostril You can then buy the drugs from your vet. The aim will probably be to try to reduce or remove the steroid dose and put him on steroid nebuliser instead.

Has your vet suggested any drug therapy? Acetyl-cysteine can help by breaking down the bonds that make the mucous sticky - this will hopefully allow your boy to cough it up. I have used it via injection but here are oral forms and I believe also nebuliser forms also.
 
Its definitely allergy related, were thinking of moving him up to my aunts for the 2 weeks he has to have off to see if that helps him recover. Ill get a hold of one from boots and ask the vet what drugs etc. I know shes going to prescribe various drugs to prevent more crap getting into his lungs and to loosen the mucus but its grade 3/3 currently and isn't budging! :(
 
My veteran Sunny, developed Summer Pasture Associated COPD (severe tree pollen allergy) 5 years ago when we moved from halfway up a mountain to lower ground. He's got progressively worse and last autumn he was so ill that he couldn't even be sedated for an endoscopy or the vets feared he would stop breathing altogether. I gave him a winter of anything he wanted, as I knew that quality of life issues would mean he had to be pts in the summer. He'd been on everything including oral ventipulmin to relax the airways, oral sputolosin to break up the sticky mucus, inhaled ventipulmin and inhaled steroids, and finally oral steroids that came with an almost unacceptably high risk of laminitis. Also horrendously costly. Nothing made the slightest difference. The endoscopy showed his lungs absolutely choked with thick sticky mucus. His larynx was black with bruising from the coughing. But the only thing that eventually brought him some peace from the never ending coughs that racked his body 24/7 was the arrival of winter. Then last February, my vets had a talk from the rep from Fidavet who make Cavalesse. Cavalesse is marketed exclusively for sweet itch but the rep explained to my equine vets that it would work the same for pollen allergy COPD. They gave my vets 3 packs to trial, each pack lasts 3 months. They kept 2 packs for sweet itch trials and, bless them for ever, gave me the last pack to trial on Sunny. If you do a search on all my posts you'll see the story unwind. I was hoping for a miracle cure and was dying to be able to report it for pollen-allergy horses everywhere. Sadly it hasn't proved to be a miracle but Sunny is a good 60% - 65% better than last year and that's close enough to a miracle for me. That improvement has allowed me to gently bring him out of permanent retirement and he can be gently ridden a couple of times a week now - not bad for a 27 year old with half his lungs shot!!!

I'd recommend Cavalesse to anyone with a COPD horse where it's caused by an allergic response to something in his environment. You have to get it from a vet - it's £90 for 3 months from my vets but I've found it on-line for £68. The only thing with it is that the horse needs to be started on it 3 weeks before the 1st symptoms are expected to appear so it would be no use to you until next year, and also it needs to be given about the same time every day. Miss a day and you've wasted months of effort. If you need any more info please do PM me.
 
Box_Of_Frogs said:
My veteran Sunny, developed Summer Pasture Associated COPD (severe tree pollen allergy) 5 years ago when we moved from halfway up a mountain to lower ground. He's got progressively worse and last autumn he was so ill that he couldn't even be sedated for an endoscopy or the vets feared he would stop breathing altogether. I gave him a winter of anything he wanted, as I knew that quality of life issues would mean he had to be pts in the summer. He'd been on everything including oral ventipulmin to relax the airways, oral sputolosin to break up the sticky mucus, inhaled ventipulmin and inhaled steroids, and finally oral steroids that came with an almost unacceptably high risk of laminitis. Also horrendously costly. Nothing made the slightest difference. The endoscopy showed his lungs absolutely choked with thick sticky mucus. His larynx was black with bruising from the coughing. But the only thing that eventually brought him some peace from the never ending coughs that racked his body 24/7 was the arrival of winter. Then last February, my vets had a talk from the rep from Fidavet who make Cavalesse. Cavalesse is marketed exclusively for sweet itch but the rep explained to my equine vets that it would work the same for pollen allergy COPD. They gave my vets 3 packs to trial, each pack lasts 3 months. They kept 2 packs for sweet itch trials and, bless them for ever, gave me the last pack to trial on Sunny. If you do a search on all my posts you'll see the story unwind. I was hoping for a miracle cure and was dying to be able to report it for pollen-allergy horses everywhere. Sadly it hasn't proved to be a miracle but Sunny is a good 60% - 65% better than last year and that's close enough to a miracle for me. That improvement has allowed me to gently bring him out of permanent retirement and he can be gently ridden a couple of times a week now - not bad for a 27 year old with half his lungs shot!!!

I'd recommend Cavalesse to anyone with a COPD horse where it's caused by an allergic response to something in his environment. You have to get it from a vet - it's £90 for 3 months from my vets but I've found it on-line for £68. The only thing with it is that the horse needs to be started on it 3 weeks before the 1st symptoms are expected to appear so it would be no use to you until next year, and also it needs to be given about the same time every day. Miss a day and you've wasted months of effort. If you need any more info please do PM me.
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Thanks for that, Ill talk to my vet about it for next year. Its just not fun seeing them cough so much, mine doens't sound as bad as yours was but his muscles must be sore from all the coughing :( fingers crossed with the rain etc. hell pick up and if not hell go to my aunts 2 hours away so will be in a different environment.
 
Grey_Eventer said:
did you buy or make your nebuliser? I was having a browse and they are about £700 :o if you made it...how?! lol! and where do you get hold of the lomudal and flutide?
Thanks :)
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I got the nebuliser from my vet, it is an equine one, I paid about £ 70 I think, 700 norwegian kroner.
I get Flutide and Lomudal on an prescription from my vet.

I really hope you find somthing that helps him! :) I have found that I just have to try everything and try one thing at the time so I can see if it works.

Good luck! :)
 
I have a horse with idiopathic eosinophilic pneumonia. It does matter what kind of cells are found...my horse had a high percentage of eosinophils. We are currently trying to step down from high dose steroid therapy...it has been a bit of a yo-yo. Hopefully he will maintain his health steroid free. He is a new horse who had an expensive pre-purchase and passed...within one week after shipping we find he is and has been dying, Quite a shocker. It is good he responded to steroids but it is not a good prognosis. I would be interested in anyone who has been through this with their horse. Thanks. PatO
 
Sorry to hear about your horse :(

Are you looking for a nebuliser to administer drugs with or just something to help loosen up the horrible gunky stuff in his airways?
 
What is he fed/bedded on?

Have you tried nose nets to help reduce intake?

Eucalyptus is also supposed to be good - and whilst I haven't used their breathing products, global herbs skin allergy stuff has given me my pony back - i nearly had her pts with allergies last summer... used other products of theirs (restore, immuplus) -all with excellent results so that may be worth a look :)

Not too sure if it would, but what about karvol on the head collar or something? helps with human congestion?
 
karen_c said:
Sorry to hear about your horse :(

Are you looking for a nebuliser to administer drugs with or just something to help loosen up the horrible gunky stuff in his airways?
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Its really just to loosen everything up as its all so thick- ive started putting Vix just in the end of his nostrils (vet suggested) and I think this could help, hopefully!

popularfurball said:
What is he fed/bedded on?

Have you tried nose nets to help reduce intake?

Eucalyptus is also supposed to be good - and whilst I haven't used their breathing products, global herbs skin allergy stuff has given me my pony back - i nearly had her pts with allergies last summer... used other products of theirs (restore, immuplus) -all with excellent results so that may be worth a look :)

Not too sure if it would, but what about karvol on the head collar or something? helps with human congestion?
Click to expand...

Ive considered nose nets but not sure if they work, but tbh id try anything at the moment!
I might email global herbs and see what they say, its good to know that youve had success as hes just not doing great... hes perfectly happy in himself but he is SO lethargic to ride (not riding him atm) whereas usually hes a really fun, bouncy little horse! I miss that :(
 
Grey_Eventer said:
Its really just to loosen everything up as its all so thick- ive started putting Vix just in the end of his nostrils (vet suggested) and I think this could help, hopefully!
Click to expand...

In that case you should hopefully be able to get something a bit cheaper :)

With the cats and dogs who need this kind of thing I often ask their owners to look at buying a portable medical nebuliser intended for humans...usually about £50 either from ebay or maplin (no idea why they sell them but they do!)

Try these links, might be worth a look....

http://www.maplin.co.uk/portable-nebuliser-35611

ebay nebulisers
 
I have a homemade nebuliser for my copd horse. I had bought a mask and spacer from the vet to administer inhalers but he hated it so it was pretty useless. He stands and goes to sleep with his nebuliser on. It took a bit of trial and error to get it set up but it's basically made of a bucket for over the nose which has a seal round the top and a human nebuliser compressor and chamber. It cost about £100 to make and has really helped him
 
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