SEVERE rection to wormer - please read

[melliebobs]

We all wormed the our horses on our part livery yard with Equest, as we do the Equest and the Equest pramox programe. Danny - a horse that has been wormed with this several times and has been fine has taken a severe reaction to it.

Danny was showing symtoms of going down, looked un-cordinated, sweating, muscle tremors and like he really was not fully with us - if you get what I mean.

Called out the vets and Simon Constable immediatley referred him to Leahurst, he thought he looked a bit colicy but the symptoms were not all classic colic.

The journey was terrible, he kept going down in the wagon, the winds were horrific, and they had closed the Rd to Leahurst due to an accident. Eventually got him there and things were even worse. The staff were excellent - as always there!

We were convinced that this reaction was something to do with him being wormed the day before. After liver tests came back normal, his heart rate was normal, he passed dropping and wee'd okay. He was not dehydrated - which are all colic type things they started to investigate the worming avenue. We used Equest, they have had these before no problem. Turns out there has been a case of a shetland with this after worming. They could not speak to the worming company until today, to find out about other cases and how to treat. Needless to say the worming company are denying all knowledge and will not advise which drugs would be safe to use and which wouldn't.

Danny developed colic overnight and had to have some intestine removed. He got through that surgery okay but is still having these delerious moments. Leahurst have advised they are not holding out much hope due to the severity of the case.

I am so disgusted that this happens to horses apperently all over and this is kept quite by the greedy drugs company's who have been reluctant to help this poor horse out.

I would really like to know if anyone else has ever had any similar experience of this and if so can you please let me know, via thread or PM. I would really like to do something about this. Even if it is just raise awareness of the risks of worming.

We are not worming again unless they need to be. We are going on a droppings count system. The YO is beside herself as she administered the dose, but we are part livery and that was part of her service but she won't see it like that, especially if he doesn't pull through.

Please keep your fingers crossed for Danny, he is a lovely horse. And please do let me know of anything like this you have experienced. After seeing a horse in such a state I feel compelled to raise awareness at least.

Thanks xx

 

[Toby_Zaphod]

Fingers Crossed for Danny. I do know of another case where a mare was administered Equest & had a severe reaction. This would be about 3/4 years ago on our yard, she was treated by the vet & luckily she pulled through, but it was a very nervous time.

Our yard is on a worm count programme & we worm for Tape in the autumn. We don't like to put chemicals into a horse unless we have to. Once again best of luck with Danny.

 

[MizElz]

Have not had any bad experiences myself, but I have known of a Shetland who died the day after being wormed; they said his insides had been theoretically burnt away

Have also known of another pony who had a horrific reaction; I dont know what wormer was used with her, but I do know that Equest was the one used on the Shetland - hence why I have avoided it ever since.

Fingers crossed for Danny, poor boy

 

[Haniki]

That's awful. Poor Danny, hope he pulls through.

 

[moneypit1]

OMG poor horse. I think I will go via the worm count avenue from now on. Please let us know how Danny progresses, lets all hope he will be ok. xxxxx

 

[carthorse]

I think we have been brainwashed by the drug companies into worming when not needed and if you have a problem they are not interested.
we used to worm as per advised by drug companies but one of our old horses started to loose weight and we found he had a heavy burden of worms .The vet administered drugs every 3 weeks and helped him .We wrote to the drug company and they just wrote back and said there were no known cases of resistance to their wormer.
THERE WON'T BE IF THEY DON'T COME AND CHECK ONES THAT HAVE PROBLEMS.
We now have worm count

 

[Shilasdair]

I'm sorry to hear about Danny...and hope he pulls through. You don't necessarily know that it is the wormer to blame - one of mine colicked due to a blood clot (no wormer involved) - these things happen, unfortunately.
I know you are upset about Danny, but the potential benefits of Equest and all wormers to equidae can't be discounted because of a small percentage of horses reacting to the drug.
I am sure no one is naieve enough to think that there is such a thing as a risk free drug, or risk free existence for that matter.
Poo picking and worm counts are a good way to control worm burdens, but you will probably have to use some wormers at least initially, and none of them are risk free to your horse.
S

 

[Tierra]

As ive mentioned before on here you cant buy horse wormers anywhere here. Everything has to go through the vets who do worm counts and then prescribe the correct wormer at the correct doseage (you dont even get entire wormers, you get, quite literally, the correct dose for the weight of horse in question)

The worm counts are free, the wormers are cheaper than in the UK and the system seems to work well.

 

[Selkie]

Poor Danny I hope he pulls through. You have me really worried now as I use Equest for my four think. I will have a re-think about what I use

 

[sara_l]

Poor guy. never heard of a bad reaction to worming though

 

[the watcher]

So sorry to hear about Danny, it must be a very traumatic time for everybody concerned.
However I do think you need to keep an open mind on the cause of the problems, the danger with focussing on the specific wormer is that investigations may miss another possible cause for these problems, which may still be present at the yard and there are so many possible causes, plants, items discarded in the paddock, contaminated feed - so do think outside the box and be sure to check for all these too.

I am not connected in any way with Dodge BTW, but have used Equest and Equitape (or Pramox) consistently for several years with no ill effects

 

[Stinkbomb]

Sorry to hear about your pony Danny, hope he's ok. How big is he???

I have heard alot about miniatures reacting/ dying as a result of being wormed with a Moxidectin based wormer. MINIATURES/SHETLANDS SHOULD NOT BE WORMED WITH THIS PRODUCT its just too risky.

I dont worm now i just rely on worm counts ( except for those worms not found in counts obviously! )

It might be worth trying this method instead but im sure Leahurst can advise you on this.

 

[brightmount]

I am on a big yard and we have to worm 4 times a year with the specified wormer: Equest winter and summer, and Equest Pramox autumn and spring.

My horse has never had a problem before, but last week, 4 days after being wormed, she colicked. This is the first time she has had colic since we bought her 4 years ago.

There are other reasons that could have caused it, we have broken clays in our hay at the moment that I am having to be really careful at finding, and she had been on a trial of half a bute every other day the previous week which I had stopped, so I can't say it was the wormer, or any of these, but who knows?

She did recover quickly thankfully.

 

[lachlanandmarcus]

My horse went down with a mystery virus after having flu/tet and then Equest within a few days.

His white cell count was half what it should be. He didnt eat for a week. But he didnt colic.

The illness recurred a number of times over the last year. Royal Vet College said its v unusual and almost like ME type condition.

I am just glad I am moving to my own place soon and can move to a worm count system (plus tapeworm treatment as they dont show on the counts). And I would never worm and vacc so close together again. He might already have had the virus but he was perfectly well so the wormer etc at minimum triggered it.

I wouldnt touch Pramox at all, only because I just think it is too much for their systems to cope with

 

[Donkeymad]

So sorry to hear about Danny and hope he pulls through. However, there is no certainty that the wormer was the cause and every single drug has a risk, to which just one in a million could succumb. I had a very bad reaction to Equimax once and contacted the manufacturer, who said they had never heard of this and wanted more info to try to find if/why the wormer may have done this.

 

[Madam_max]

The last yard I was at, they all had Equest, about 4 had colic (2 severe) and the others got swellings around their mouths.

 

[PeterNatt]

I am very sorry to hear about your horse and I hope that he quickly recovers.

Which wormers did you use last year and in what order?

Using worm counts is not a real solution I am afraid as it will not detect encystead red worms or tape worms.

As stated above the best policy is to pick up the worms each day and worm regularly.

 

[toddthesod]

Oh no this sounds all too familier I am afraid. Five years ago lost my lovely horse whom I had owned for 18 years. I am convinced to this day that the colic was bought on by a reaction to a wormer. The vet who visited my horse that night said that he didn't think it was the wormer. I however think differently and everytime I worm my horses now I get so paranoid I end up dreading worming them and get so worried that I spend most of the evening checking on them!

Hope Danny is ok...x

 

[JanetGeorge]

I certainly hope poor Danny pulls through - but his illness should NOT be interpreted as a reason not to worm. First, it could be a complete co-incidence that he got ill - co-incidences DO happen - and he had been wormed with Equest before.

The second thing to remember is that Equest is VERY efficient - if a horse has a big dose of worms you can get an adverse reaction to worming with Equest because huge numbers of worms die very quickly - causing either a toxic reaction (to the dead worms, not the wormer) or a blockage as they are expelled. So it shouldn't be used on a horse with an unknown worming history or symptoms of 'looking wormy' or horses carrying below normal bodyweight.

 

[WishfulThinker]

This is exactly why I am angry that my yard wormed my horse WITHOUT telling me as if he was Ill I would not have known that it could have been that.

 

[Llwyncwn]

I always ask the liveries to worm their own horses as should one of them have an adverse reaction or worse, I would be liable if I administered it

 

[WishfulThinker]

[ QUOTE ]
I always ask the liveries to worm their own horses as should one of them have an adverse reaction or worse, I would be liable if I administered it

[/ QUOTE ]

Ohh, think I will point that out to the YO! I was 1st told no not being wormed then apparently he has been! I asked when it was and surprise surprise it was jstu before the week where he was very different than usual. I know it could have been something else, but they didnt follow the correct procedures (keeping the horses off the grazing for 2 days afterwards) so they now have a very overgrazed field covered in teh dropping of 8 horses who have been pooping out the wormer that is NOT supposed ot go into the paddock!

 

[LauraBR]

What a coincidence, a VERY similar thing happened to a horse on the yard I am at- just a few weeks ago. Same wormer too.

I'm not comfortable discussing someone elses horse on here without their say so so I won't put any more detail here but feel free to pm me about it.

I hope Danny makes a full and speedy recovery

 

[calon]

this was posted on another forum i use in sept


STOP USING EQUEST WORMER!!!

Went to an equine first aiders course and was told by two different vets which we know that they had between them at least 12 horses in their care over the last six months die after using EQUEST wormer....

They have both notified the company who disagree with their findings and will not pull it from shops... Vets think there may be a batch which is too strong for some horses.. The ones that have died range from youngsters to old and little and big so it can kill anything.......

I have used in the past but will not be from now!!

 

[melliebobs]

Thanks for your response guys.

In response to the poeple that have said this could be a co-incidence. Of course this could be something totally un-related, no denying that. And I guess we do all have to worm at some point - be we are taking our vets advice and doing the worm count. There is a vet article going in H&H next week from the lady that has been treating Danny, so looking forwards to reading that.

Leahurst are convinced this is a reaction to the wormer. They have spoken to the equine drugs company and they say that Danny has been suffering all the known symptoms apart from the temporary blindness.

If there are known symptoms then to me it says that this has happened before. All I am trying to do is raise awareness of the risks involved in worming. I have had horses all my life and have never known anything like this. I was not aware that horses could have this reaction, and if I knew it could be this bad I would have done more to find an alternatve.

I just want to know about similar experiences as I want to do something about this and like I say, raise awareness.

By the way - went to see Danny yesterday at Leahurst and he is doing a lot better. Still having delerious moments - but a lot more with it and his stats are improving so fingers crossed he has turned the corner x

 

[leemark]

With reference to this I am sorry to hear about this and hope he is better but lzt spoke to me today and mentioned this thread.

I wormed my horse with the correct dose of Equest on 24th December. He has been on this wormer since I got him last December along with the Pramox. My horse has quite an irritable bowel in any case but he scoured on and off for two weeks. This got severe on about the 8th January and the vet was called because he was showing signs of a very gassy colic and had projectile diahorea.

Vet administered usual colic drugs but was concerned about the wormer (another horse had similar but not as severe symptoms) and so took blood tests.

The first test showed markers pointing to an allergic reaction (although we can never be certain of what exactly) and the second showed a massive explosion of the small redworm in the gut.

He was put onto steriods for just over two weeks and wormed again with a different wormer and taken off his haylage and put on to hay.

The steriods appear to have done the job - he came off them at a reducing dose nearly two weeks ago and appears fine. We introduced him back to haylage and he is a bit looser at the moment so we are monitoring the situation.

My vet didn't want to commit but I am convinced it was the wormer.

We are going to do a worm count with the vet in the spring and devise the yards worming according to this as my liveries are now understandably worried.

 

[JanetGeorge]

[ QUOTE ]

The first test showed markers pointing to an allergic reaction (although we can never be certain of what exactly) and the second showed a massive explosion of the small redworm in the gut.
....

My vet didn't want to commit but I am convinced it was the wormer.



[/ QUOTE ]

Um - how does a wormer CREATE a red worm 'explosion'?? What it CAN - and DOES do is kill them very effectively - sometimes TOO effectively. It sounds like this horse has some damage to the bowel - possibly due to past worm problems. This may make him particularly sensitive either to a wormer - or to a massive number of worms dying.

 

[leemark]

I do understand how the wormer works - these were the vet's words not mine initially.

What I imagine happened if that the sudden migration of a lot of redworm (which is what the wormer is supposed to do in order that they can be excreted) caused the large amount appearing in the gut (hence the explosion).

If the horse wasn't sensitive to the womer, I maintain that this would not have happened - it is like anything else - certain humans react badly to certain drugs. It is the effects of this that can be devastating and people need to know what the effects can be. There are known issues with certain drugs - they can work too effectivley which can be dangerous.

I agree that I do not know the horse's worming history prior to me buying him and so with the irritable bowel I would agree that there may have been worm problems in the past, however he did not show any signs of being wormy.

 

[lilym]

i really feel for you....
have you taken steps to fill out a SARSS (suspected adverse reactions survellience scheme) form? you need to contact the person/company who sold you the wormer and they will have a copy of this form, the form once filled will be lodged with the VMD and the drugs company, please do bear in mind however, that although these drugs are tested to stringent standards, there is always a risk, just the same as in human medicene, good luck with your case.

 

[PeterNatt]

Where there is a heavy burden of worms in a horse then the use of a wormer can cause colic attacks. This is why it is important to regularly worm horses with an appropriate wormer for that time of year.

Where an adverse reaction is formally reported to a drug company then they must record it so that if there are a number of similar adverse reactions the product can be investigated and if necessary removed from the market.