IRAP treatment

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Stasha22

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Has anyone had any experience of IRAP?

I'm considering this treatment for my horse and would like to hear from anyone that has experienced or knows anything about it. Can't find that much info on the internet about it.

Thanks in advance
 
My mare underwent IRAP in december due to a ruptured ligament within her foot. They take an amount of blood from your horses neck and mix it with some specially coated glass beads (coated with Interleukin-1, which promotes the blood to produce anti-inflammatory protiens to counteract its effect). The blood is spun in a centrifuge to separate the protien-rich serum to be injected. The beads are left in the syringe, so only the anti-inflammatory protiens are left, none of the inflammatory Interleukin-1 is injected into the horse. The serum is then injected into the affected area/joint. it is supposed to promote the healing from the inside out. My mare is due back at the vets on friday, so will find out then if there is any sign of imporvement.
Its quite an expensive treatment, it can cost upto £600 just for the blood collection, due to them using special syringes, storage of the blood and the treatment it has to go through. I think my mare had 4 injections, a week apart. So theres the cost of injection on top of that too.
What has your mare been diagnosed with, if you dont mind me asking?
 
Thanks for your reply, that's really helpful.

Lottie had an MRI yesterday which diagnosed severe damage to collateral ligament in right fore. We have been here before, she had similar injury to the left fore about 2 years ago so we are well practised with this injury!

I'm pretty sure we will be going ahead with the IRAP treatment, luckily she is insured so cost should be ok. They need to get some more MRI mages on Monday morning and then they will call me to make a final decision.

Only slight issue is she will need to stay at the hospital for the duration of the treatment, 3 weeks, and livery is not covered by my insurance but I will find the money somehow. Reason that she has to stay is it is not feasible to bring her home and take her back every week as we had a disastrous journey to the hospital yesterday, lorry broke down on dual carriageway, took 2 1/2 hours to get her on the rescue lorry and then she went down twice. She is not a great loader anyway so after this I don't think I stand a chance!! My vet and hospital agree that it is better for her to stay with them so that's what I'll do.

Does your horse have a collateral ligament injury too?
 
Yes! My lad had an arthoscopy to his nearside fore coffin joint in June 2006 and 4 months box rest. He was improving by christmas but still quite lame on turns. Vet recommended IRAP and enough bloods were taken for 7 injections. We had them at approx 2 month intervals but only had 4. It has an accumulative effect so after the first one I didn't see a great deal of difference but between 2nd and 3rd a massive jump and between 3rd and 4th another huge leap. Ludo is now back doing everything he was before the Operations including jumping which I wasn't sure he'd be able to do.

As someone else said it is expensive - it was about £600 to collect the bloods and do the lab work on it, then everytime he had an injection it was about £100 as he had to be sedated prior to injection, local anesthetic (sp), call out etc etc. Ludo also had 3-4 days box rest after each injection and then 2-3 days of walking out in hand before I could get back on. But within a week after the box rest he was pretty much back on track with normal work.

Hope this helps, it's certainly worth a try, especially if insurance will cover the cost of treatment
 
Merlin has had it too..... 18 months ago.... now sound and back in work.

He had it for arthritis of the fetlock joint and it seems to have worked
grin.gif


He had his scintigraphy at O'Gormans too!!! Guy called Bruce did it.
 
my cob has had IRAP for arthiritis in his coffin joint.. Hes now went sound.. Hes just had his second IRAP injection yesterday and i am going back to the vet hospital to collect him tonight.. He had had cortistone or however you spell it injected a few month ago and that didnt work for him however IRAP has or it so far it would seem.. He had been lame since November before he got IRAP.. hes only 6.. Fingers crossed..
 
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