Ulcer experts, Help please!

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Thistle

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Horse suddenly very reactive to any leg, humping and kicking back, even in walk. Trots up fairly sound. Started Saturday, worked well for 20 mins then thought he had been stung, gave him Sunday off, tried again yesterday, against leg the minute he was asked to start to collect and hold himself, even in walk.

Horse has a history of hyperchondria, he is known as 'sick note' he is a bit of a grumpy creature at the best of times but has def become more irritable lately.

He is turned out all day, every day except for when he works or competes (dressage), overnight has about 1/3 bale hay, or in winter haylage (so pretty much ad lib, they don't come in until it's dark)
Feed atm consists of a handful of happy hoof with vits and mins as prior to this last week he has had plenty of energy. During winter he gets higher energy feed but always high fibre
He can be stressy and times if routine is altered, he condition is good, very shiney and well muscled.
He is a mild windsucker (after feed)
Plan is to have a chat with my vet this morning, horse is uninsurable due to his history and they wouldn't pay for ulcers anyway as he windsucks. He gets limestone flour (calcium carbonate) in his feed for the windsucking.

We have had him a few years, prior to that he was is a higher pressured competition environment where I know he got the very best care and attention, but would have had a higher grain diet and less turnout due to the nature of his work.

Depending on what vet says I think my plan is to start Omeprazole trial asap and ultimately import it from USA iff poss due to costs.

I would welcome any input, feed suggestions, ideas etc.

Timing isn't great, his rider is home from uni and desperate to compete him as his last years lameness seems to be resolved.
 
Honestly, I would pay for the scoping rather than do an omaprazole trial. If the ulcers are caused by a bacteria infection, then it won't clear them up, and you'll be chasing shadows. Scoping isn't terribly expensive - think my last one was £120 ish at my yard. There are so many things this could be aside from ulcers too...

I feed Pure Feed Company stuff (mine events on Pure Easy) and use Feedmark's ulcer calm supplement. Aside from making sure he always has fibre before work (usually half a scoop pure easy with ulcer calm whilst I'm grooming/tacking up) and ad lib forage with as much turnout as possible, I don't do anything special with him.
 
Would agree to scope to rule in or out. It's one of the few things with horses you can get a cheap-ish definitive answer on quickly. Also a small proportion of ulcer horses don't respond to omeprazole and a small proportion get worse on it, so still a risk you don't get an answer. Don't set any store by how "well" the horse looks in weight and coat, vets are moving on from that as a universal symptom these days. And if he's had lameness or other chronic pain that can make ulcers more likely. Good luck!
 
I was lucky in that I did the Omeprazole trial and it worked wonders with Bloss. Shes now totally off it (has been for 2 weeks). She is out from around 6pm to 530am every day (lots of grass), in during the day with ad lib soaked hay. She is fed soaked lucie nuts with ulcer calm (and other supplements but they dont relate to her ulcers) and I never ride her on an 'empty' stomach.

When i take her out competing or training I use Protexin Quick Fix. I am also about to start worm counting instead of worming as wormers trigger her aswell (you can use the Protexin after worming but i'd rather only worm if I have to). She is currently on a course of antibiotics and bute (managed to slice her side open on a flint rolling in the field so has had to have staples) and after shes finished the course I will use the Quick Fix again.

Just to add, she isnt insured hence I went down the Omeprazole route, my other horse is insured and if I ever had any doubts he would be scoped.
 
I'm sure I've spoken to you about my mare she lives on the maintance dose of ompeprazole and touch wood we haven't had a problem since! We tried ulcer calm and many other supplements and nothing worked she also lives out all summer and spends loads of time out in the winter with ad lib hay so my vets agreed I could do no more! Hope u get it sorted
 
Isnt importing the omazaperole illegal?

Personally I would scope - then you know what you are dealing with. I was convinced mine had ulcers, had all the symptoms, so had her scoped. Came back clear!
 
another omeprazole user.....i didnt scope as horse not isnured and also 99% certain it was ulcers (thanks to help on here).
CS is down to mainteance dose and going great guns so at some point will try and bring him down to being maintained on ulcer calm and then omeprazole only for day before, of, and after a show.
 
Had a long chat with my trusted vet this afternoon. I'm taking him into clinic tomorrow morning for scope, he will be VERY grumpy by the time he gets there with no hay or breakfast!

I would rather get a definitive answer for the sake of £150, at least that rules out tumours etc. If we find anything then he will go on whatever the vets have. I will then get the necessary drugs from the most economical source that I can.

Interestingly my shiatsu lady is here today (prebooked, coincidence) He was very reactive to any pressure on his left side around the girth and kicked and bit when touched firmly around his sternum and asked to lift.

His hocks are pretty good atm but it's 6 months since his last jab so he'll get a full mot tomorrow.

I have renamed him 'Vets Ski Holiday' because I know what I am paying for as vet is using our apartment!
 
Good luck for tomorrow! The good news is that if it's a positive result you can usually see a big improvement quickly on treatment. But beware that if there's also something else going on to cause pain or discomfort, carry on trying to find and resolve that otherwise there's a risk you'll get the ulcers cleared and as soon as horsey comes off the meds the ulcers might come back if they're secondary to this other thing going on... Or as my vet put it: 'be critical of Gastrogard', be looking for things it ISN'T solving rather than only noticing the stuff it does improve...

Oh, and if you leave horsey in a stable at the vet's, I'd check it yourself to make sure there are no bits of hay left in the bed. A receptionist put my horse in a box when we arrived for her last scope and there were minute strands of hay in the shavings... and she found every single bit and ate it, which although only tiny made scoping a bit of a 'mare, and which was very annoying given she (and I!) had gone through the stress of the starvation!

Good luck, let us know how you get on!
 
I've just fed and hayed up and daughter is going out around midnight to remove all food from his box.

I'm getting the full MOT to try to rule out other causes. We know the hock can niggle a bit Shiatsu lady commented on how mobile it was today so don't tink it's too much of an issue.

Wish I could say the same about the tension in my back. Having severe issues with revolting teenage (19) yr old son atm.
 
Thistle said:
Thanks for all you replies and help, it is entirely due to discussions on here that alerted me to ulcer possibility.
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I'm now going down the scoping route too, after this and a number of other threads have made me think that there are similar things going on with my gelding. I hope you get a positive resolution.
 
I just got my bill in yesterday from the clinic for scoping and it was £357; more than double what I was led to believe it would cost and what has been quoted above.
 
re the bil, I have an agreement with my vet, I have a ski apartment and he likes skiing!

Todays update

Starved from midnight as per instructions. Scoped around 10-10.30am. Could only see top half as stomach still has food in it, def hay/fibre. Bloody horse has held on to his stomach contents. Have left him in bare stable at vets and they'll rescope this afternoon at no further charge. Hopefully he will have digested the remains by then.

Bit of grade 2 thickening and a few spots in top half but need to look at pyloric region, nothing seen so far to account for his extreme reactions (totally out of character). Still extremely reactive to pressure lower girth area and sternum particularly on the left.

Just shows that horses don't necessarily need food 24/7 to keep stomach full.
 
Such a timely thread Thistle. thanks for posting with the findings so far. My horse's neighbour is a TB loaned by a young teenage boy. He has lost a lot of condition, is refusing to go forwards in his work and the hind leg comes up if his belly is touched. He is a prime candidate for ulcers being a cribber who has been on box rest for a few weeks due to an abcess in his hoof. Vet attended yesterday and agreed its most probably ulcers so scoping has been arranged. Out of interest once treatment begins what is the restriction on exercise? His young loaner asked me if i knew what the time frame was but I really didnt know. Do people ride whilst horse is being treated?

Also regarding importing the drugs from the USA- its illegal for them to be sold in the USA and its illegal to buy them here in the UK. From what I gather the drugs on the website mentioned on the other thread are manufactured in and sent from India despite it being an American website. However a scientific test by a user on Chronicle of the Horse forum found that they were effective and contained exactly what they said they did, although the probiotic treatments advertised on the same site do not. The thread made for interesting reading, I will see if I can find it if its of interest to anyone.
 
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SpottedCat said:
Hmm, I was told to starve for a minimum of 12 hours.....any less and my vet deemed the scoping not worth doing!
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We weren't far off 12 hours, took everything away at bedtime, about 11.30 pm. He was still being scoped 10.45 with quite a lot of contents there. Guess he is just a greedy horse who likes to keep his tummy full. Although he didn't appear to have eaten hardly any of his hay at that point, he often saves it for later, droppings etc are all normal.
Vet has said he will DVD the scope this afternoon if we don't get back in time, he is always very good at talking through what we're seeing esp as he knows B is a med student. He had a student with him today so we got the full works!
 
elliefiz said:
Out of interest once treatment begins what is the restriction on exercise? His young loaner asked me if i knew what the time frame was but I really didnt know. Do people ride whilst horse is being treated?
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Yep. Some people on here seem to have chosen to rest the horse or turn it out etc. The vet who did my original scope said to carry on competing. (We weren't at the time for other reasons.) He gave a list of management changes, but said other than those to carry on as normal. Especially because ulcers are sometimes secondary to something else and you want to remove only one variable at a time if you want to get to the root of a problem. ie, if a horse is reluctant to go forward still once the gastrogard's been kicked in for a week or so, then that's probably being caused by something else and you would want to crack on sorting that... otherwise that prob would still be there when you take them off the Gastrogard, risking a recurrence if it's a contributing factor. Does that make sense?

Thistle you should have been fine in that timeframe really... eleven hours isn't massively far off twelve when you consider how quickly they digest stuff. By 12 hours on the first scope my girl looked literally scrubbed out. I wonder if he'd hidden bits of hay somewhere in his bed? Hmm, anyway... here's hoping you get useful results this afternoon! (PS note to self, buy ski chalet and bribe vet!)
 
He can't hide anything in his bed, he is on rubber mats with a wood pellet layer over it (so sawdust really) no where for anything to hide! Perhaps he bribed the mare next door to pass some through the bars!
 
Thistle said:
He can't hide anything in his bed, he is on rubber mats with a wood pellet layer over it (so sawdust really) no where for anything to hide! Perhaps he bribed the mare next door to pass some through the bars!
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Wowsers, who knows! If it makes you feel any better my vets say they've lost count of the number of horses which have found something somewhere to eat and have to either wait around or come back the next day.
 
At least my vets are only 20 mins in the lorry and they are happy to have him in for the day, it's not as though he is going to eat all their hay supplies today. Bet he'll be hungry tonight!
 
So, he has just been scoped again, still has stomach contents, totally normal soft fibre/hay, not an impaction or anything scary to worry about. That's now over 17 hours since last food. He is staying at vets overnight, will be given some nice soft green hand picked grass to activate his stomach and will try again tomorrow.

Fingers crossd. This horse does like to test vets.
 
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