Respiratory supplements for COPD

[Holz99]

My 10 year old mare recently developed COPD after having inhalers which she refused to take the only other option is steroids which would be nice to avoid if possible due to her being a pony.
Is there any supplements that people have used that have helped with their horses respiratory either with breathing or coughing that have worked for them.

 

[HappyHollyDays]

Mine doesn’t have COPD but he does have a lot of trouble with allergies and pollen. After much research and many recommendations on here I switched him to Science Supplements RespirAid and it has worked really well. This spring he hasn’t coughed at all and the pollen count has been high for weeks now. There are two products, one is a 10 day higher strength powder and then the normal maintenance dose.

 

[Ownedby4horses]

OP, can you change anything in her management also? Bedding change, soaked/thoroughly wetted hay. Do you have any crop fields nearby?

We had an old boy with COPD, did everything, had inhalers which massively improved it, then our youngest mini started with Asthma and onto inhalers too (I’m a dab hand at inhalers if you decide to try again) , the crucial change for us was we were surrounded by Oil Seed Rape fields, two Vets had mentioned it as a possibility but there obviously was little we could do at the time (the house and land was up for sale fortunately), when we moved, we had Zero symptoms and were able to stop all meds. It was amazing how much they were affected by it.

 

[Holz99]

OP, can you change anything in her management also? Bedding change, soaked/thoroughly wetted hay. Do you have any crop fields nearby?

We had an old boy with COPD, did everything, had inhalers which massively improved it, then our youngest mini started with Asthma and onto inhalers too (I’m a dab hand at inhalers if you decide to try again) , the crucial change for us was we were surrounded by Oil Seed Rape fields, two Vets had mentioned it as a possibility but there obviously was little we could do at the time (the house and land was up for sale fortunately), when we moved, we had Zero symptoms and were able to stop all meds. It was amazing how much they were affected by it.

We’ve changed everything management wise she has hay soaked and wedding is low dust and she’s out more than she is in her stable. In November we had a constant cough that used to be continuous, had the vet out and ended up with inhalers that is impossible to do by myself no matter how hard we’ve tried by introducing it slowly trying treats the whole lot she’s a massive drama queen. We got told if inhalers did not work we’d have to have steroids which is a lot for my pony especially with the lami risk. It had improved massively until recently she just had the odd flare ups that end up with horrible breathing problems and her cough comes back and riding is sometimes the issue with anything above a walk causing her cough to start and breathe heavily.
Primarily, just seeing what products are out there soon as we’ve tried our best with the changing of environment yet the flare ups still become an issue. We have tried cough syrup as well to try and ease it slightly but that made no difference.
We have no crop fields anywhere near us either.

 

[HelenBack]

I used to use Winergy Ventilate for my horse and my vet said that was the only one that had any evidence to back it up. I think the Science Supplements one is meant to be good too.

I did find inhalers worked loads better for my horse than oral steroids. He didn't like the inhaler at first but got used to it pretty quickly. Probably a long shot and a very expensive experiment if it doesn't work but have you tried using a nebuliser if she won't accept the inhaler?