Stomach Ulcer Experiences?

[Eventerchick]

Please could people give me any experience they have had with stomach ulcers, particularly in terms of poor performance while competing and diagnosis, treatment etc?

I have an advanced event mare who on the whole is brilliant but can also come out 'quiet' some compeition days for no apparent reason and never really switch on xc. She is hard to keep weight on at the best of times, stressy by nature and gets picky about her food as her workload increases. All the signs seem to be there! Bloods, scope, scanning legs etc done and all fine so this seems the next logical step? I know it can affect performance but I wondered in what way people have experienced and if I start treating asap how long until I could hope for an improvement?

 

[princess+dude]

I had a 5 year old ISH gelding, who began to show similar signs!! He was difficult to get weight on to, grumpy when being tacked or rugged up, picky at food and every now and again was quite low!!! He eventually began showing signs of colic quite regularly so we decided to have him scoped!! It showed up that he had a mild grade one ulcer that was able to be treated but it gave a lot of answers for his behaviour!!

We gave hime gastroguard for a while and if i remember correctly with better management (he then went out in field for longer and had a haynet before exercising) there was a noticible difference within a matter of weeks!! Hope that helps

 

[HazellB]

.... if I start treating asap how long until I could hope for an improvement?

The second the pain goes away they improve a good deal then it gets better over perhaps six months in all.

I used limestone flour in every feed (2 or 3 each day) and also toyed about with camomile tea in my mare's sugarbeet, dried mint, loads of hay at all times and toys like decahedrons. My mare is out 24/7 with access to a stable and that helps a lot. The limestone was a grand sum of five quid and as I only used a wooden spoonful in each feed it lasted 5 to 6 months!

My vet was happy I'd diagnosed the problem myself and equally happy with my non-drug way of treating it. In fact he's suggested the same route to people who he doesn't think will pay for drugs in the long run and said it's worked fine for them too. Some vets would say it won't work and sell you treatments that are 99% limestone flour at vastly inflated prices, but my vet knows I'm not going to fall for that one.

Good luck!