Off food on ulcer treatement

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showqa

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My horse seems to be leaving his feed - it has antacid in it and myoplast. He has gastrogaurd in the morning, but he seems to sort through his feed and then tip it up and ignore it. Can you tell me if you've had this experience? How crucial is the antacid to his recovery or is it the GG that is the most important? Thanks.
 
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Some treat without the sucralfate but I'd try to get it in if you can as it's best for the healing and any issues further back than the stomach. I'd add a little water and syringe it. My vet said it works best syringed in on an empty as poss a stomach rather than in food anyway. Just a v small amount of water mind, they fluff up very quickly!! This does mean you're trying to get access to an empty stomach quite a lot of the time, so we set up a routine that was as close as possible to an empty stomach as mine needed gg on empty plus 2 x sucralfate also on empty... (all in a horse whose stomach you're doing your damnedest to keep full!!)
 
Philamena, this is exactly what I'm thinking. He's on adlib hay (actually, always has been really) so hopefully his stomach never is empty. Oh God, I'm finding the whole thing so stressful that I reckon I'm going to end up with ulcers.
 
Hah, I know the feeling. If it helps, here's how we did mine:

YO would give gastrogard very first thing she did on the yard (as stomach most likely at its emptiest as even if they have ad lib hay they get bored of it I find overnight...) and left her to digest it for 20 mins while she went to mix feeds.

Then Sucralfate - leave to digest for as long as possible while giving all the other horses their feeds first, so had 10 mins or so to start to go through.

Then the closest other time we could find to an empty stomach for the second dose of sucralfate was when she very first came in for the evening, as she wasn't on stacks of grass and quite often spends time in the afternoon standing around but not eating. So she'd have the dose as soon as she came in, then stand around for 20 mins or so being groomed etc before being given alfalfa chaff before riding, or put into stable but without hay for 20 mins if she wasn't going to be doing anything,,,,

You do your best and get as close as you can to perfect without beating yourself up when you have to make the odd compromise.
 
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Can I ask how much forage you gave her? My horse is in the field but there's little grass, however he has access to the barn from that field that has constant haylage in it. Does that sound reasonable to you? Only he doesn't seem that fussed on his forage either, but don't know whether I'm over analysing everything and just getting obsessed. Thanks.
 
I think provided they've got constant access you shouldn't worry too much. You can become convinced they need to be eating every single second - they don't! Initially mine was on an insane amount of hay overnight because I was so paranoid about her not eating all the time (but she wasn't eating most of it because it was looooooads) and daytimes she had enough grass to keep her eating most of the time in the field. We moved yards half way through and she was on less grass and hay was less free flowing, so she had three large haynets overnight. I think nets are better because they help them generate more saliva per swallow than when they can get a full mouthful... and My vet also suggested hanging the hay in several different nets to mimic grazing as it keeps them interested and eating for longer.

PS provided you're confident he likes the haylage and isn't finding it too acidic in large quantities... some can and mine will eat hay more consistently despite appearing mad for haylage when you first give it to her...
 
Seems weird that infact he's lost his appetite since returning from the clinic. Of course he's had the ulcers for a while, and yet he did used to be greedy for his feed and haylage. Thanks very much for your replies - just sooo worried about it and ulcers are very new to me. Your help is really appreciated.
 
No probs you're welcome - it's a whole new world of worry to get your head around isn't it?! :D

Hopefully he'll be fine hoovering up his feed again once the sucralfate isn't in it any more. If you're worried about the haylage, can you also chuck in some hay and see if that keeps him eating more? I do wonder whether some of my girl's more aggressively-food-focused / hungry monster behaviour was caused by the ulcer discomfort, so is it possible that if your horse is just less obsessive about food it's actually what he should normally be like rather than 'off' his food? If you think once you've taken out the meds he's genuinely eating less / off his food, I'd have a chat to your vet just in case.
 
Yes, I was wondering whether actually what I'm observing is his "normal" appetite. He was quite aggressive (toward other horse not me) around feed time before, and would hang around the gate to the feed area etc whereas now he just doesn't seem too bothered. I offered him an apple as a test - he snaffled that up - and he seems to be eating slower which of course IS better for him than gulping it down. I used to put large pebbles in his bucket to have to slow him down, whereas there is no need for that now.

How long did it take before you saw a real difference in your horse post meds?

I never thought I would have this problem with my horse you know as he's never had grain in my ownership (only chaff and feed balancer), he's never been stabled as such (open barn onto large yard and into field), has lots of forage always on offer. But he has been suffering with pain (SI) and I guess that's why he's ended up with them. Feel so bad for him.
 
It's hard to tell with mine when she really displayed an improvement, because it hadn't been a case of massively obvious behavioural symptoms anyway. She moved yards about three weeks through the month's treatment and was definitely calmer by that point, but it was difficult to tell what of her flightiness was ulcer pain and what was some other things about the old yard which I think set her off. There certainly wasn't a big obvious moment from the gastrogard, but gradually I noticed she was just more laid back. Quite soon afterwards it became apparent that her girthiness and other reactiveness were largely caused by other back / muscle problems, diagnosed shortly after the ulcers were diagnosed, and I think it's the pain from these muscle problems which exacerbated the ulcers and between the two of them caused the flightiness / antsy-ness. This is exactly what my vet had told me might happen: be critical of the ulcer treatment because there are often other pain-related things going on and you need to be noticing what symptoms are NOT changing through the GG treatment. But she scoped clear after a month, so don't despair if you don't see one of the dramatic improvements you will read about from some people on here, it doesn't mean it's not doing its job... but you may need to wait til the SI stuff is resolved before you see any pain related symptoms properly going.
 
Your's is an interesting story to read Philamena as in some ways it does sound similar to mine with my boy. I do appreciate what you say about having to resolve the under-lying reason before being able to properly resolve the ulcers - sooo complicated. I read that the psoas muscles are often stressed when ulcers are present, and likewise the SI region can end up being compromised when the psoas muscles are affected. It seems like such a long cause and effect chain, and not easy to tell what comes first, second or third in that chain. And then again, some of the work I will have to do to properly rehab with regard to the SI (strengthening the abs for example), can result in excess acid production, especially if there is some soreness and apprehension at going back to work and the whole cycle could start again. I have a headache just thinking about it.
 
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