Ulcer treatment- how long?

Michen

Michen

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How long did you treat your horse at full dose? My horse has an 80% reduction in the behaviour that led to me treating in the first place. Currently on Gastroguard and sulfracate and starting his fourth week.

I’m thinking another two weeks at full dose- 5 weeks total? Mainly because he’s also been on equioxx following a fall which probably won’t be helping his ulcers. So figured an extra week at full dose may be beneficial. Then another few at half dose.

Coming back to the USA with 28 syringes of Gastroguard, it’s half the cost in the UK 🤣
 
Mine had grade 2&3 squamous, found on scope. Had 4 weeks gastroguard paste, then rescoped clear. Tapered the does off at 2 weeks half a tube, then another 2.5ish weeks quarter tube.
 
AandK said:
Mine had grade 2&3 squamous, found on scope. Had 4 weeks gastroguard paste, then rescoped clear. Tapered the does off at 2 weeks half a tube, then another 2.5ish weeks quarter tube.
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Ok cool thanks. Seems four weeks is the norm but I feel like another week may balance out the negative effect the painkiller will probably be having… hmm.

Remind me did you use sulfracate too?
 
Michen said:
Ok cool thanks. Seems four weeks is the norm but I feel like another week may balance out the negative effect the painkiller will probably be having… hmm.

Remind me did you use sulfracate too?
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I think the extra week to help with the painkillers is probably a good idea. He didn't have sucralfate, just gastroguard.
 
I didn’t use syringes as F would have been a pain to dose daily.
This is how his treatment went.

He had grade 2 round the lesser curvature of the stomach. He had 4 full injections plus sucralfate and was
rescoped. The ulcers were almost clear so he had 2 more injections at 1/2 dose, plus a second pot of sucralfate.

In total he was given 6 weeks of injections and 2 pots of Sucralfate followed by, at vets suggestion, 2 months of NAF GastriAid.
We didn’t scope again and he has been, fingers crossed, fine for the past year

Hope Boggle continues to improve.
 
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Mine had grade 3 ulcers. Four weeks on peptizole. Waited another two weeks due to lack of cash before scoping again. Ulcers were very much reduced and vet recommended another two weeks on half previous dose per day to heal those remaining.


Peptizole is an alternative brand to Gastroguard but is based on omeprazole paste.
 
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Michen said:
At full dose!?
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I can’t quite remember. He has gastric and glandular ulcers. The glandular are slower to treat. He had GastroGuard, misoprol, and sulcrafate.

I think he was scoped after ? 6 weeks and were healing but not completely healed. So few more weeks full dose. Then he had to box rest for a few weeks so stayed on full dose. Then tailed off over a month.

He was scoped nearly a year later and was completely clear.
 
Mine was scoped and had grade 2 squamous. Did 8 weeks (peptizole and sucralfate) at full dose and then 2 weeks half dose, 2 weeks 1/4 dose, so also 12 weeks in total, after which he scoped clear.
This was in 2019 and he hasn't had any recurrance of the ulcer-like behaviour. His was performance/stress related. I have been very consistent since in feeding him an ulcer friendly diet and varying his training to remove as much stress as possible.
Important to tail off the meds.
I would scope, if I were you. I am not one for medicating for something like this when you don't know whether he has them or how severe they are.
 
GreyDot said:
Mine was scoped and had grade 2 squamous. Did 8 weeks (peptizole and sucralfate) at full dose and then 2 weeks half dose, 2 weeks 1/4 dose, so also 12 weeks in total, after which he scoped clear.
This was in 2019 and he hasn't had any recurrance of the ulcer-like behaviour. His was performance/stress related. I have been very consistent since in feeding him an ulcer friendly diet and varying his training to remove as much stress as possible.
Important to tail off the meds.
I would scope, if I were you. I am not one for medicating for something like this when you don't know whether he has them or how severe they are.
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I think it's pretty obvious he has them given the response to the GG and sucralfate. I had originally booked a scope but couldn't get him in for weeks so treated him anyway and then cancelled when he responded so well, my vet seemed to think it was unlikely they were glandular given the quick response. I think I'm more likely to get him scoped at the end of treatment now, to check they are gone...

I know what you mean, in a perfect world he'd have been scoped and then has treatment started but it just didn't work out like that!
 
GreyDot said:
Mine was scoped and had grade 2 squamous. Did 8 weeks (peptizole and sucralfate) at full dose and then 2 weeks half dose, 2 weeks 1/4 dose, so also 12 weeks in total, after which he scoped clear.
This was in 2019 and he hasn't had any recurrance of the ulcer-like behaviour. His was performance/stress related. I have been very consistent since in feeding him an ulcer friendly diet and varying his training to remove as much stress as possible.
Important to tail off the meds.
I would scope, if I were you. I am not one for medicating for something like this when you don't know whether he has them or how severe they are.
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Curious as to why your treatment was so long though, as most seems to be 4 weeks at full dose and grade 2 seems relatively mild? There’s such a variation in treatment recommendations!
 
Low grade ulcer, and our horse was on meds for 6 weeks - grade doesn’t really say much about how they feel it. Because he’s sensitive, we also did two weeks of half-dose agreed with vet, then one month of Succeed, now oil of oats, pronutrin and NAF magic to reduce stress
 
QueenT said:
Low grade ulcer, and our horse was on meds for 6 weeks - grade doesn’t really say much about how they feel it. Because he’s sensitive, we also did two weeks of half-dose agreed with vet, then one month of Succeed, now oil of oats, pronutrin and NAF magic to reduce stress
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On full dose?
 
Michen said:
Curious as to why your treatment was so long though, as most seems to be 4 weeks at full dose and grade 2 seems relatively mild? There’s such a variation in treatment recommendations!
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Agree Grey Dots regime with both drugs sounds more like the glandular ulcer protocol.
 
@Michen, I don’t know if someone has suggested it, but there is a really long informative thread in the Horse Care section of CoTH that is about the benefits of using Nexium and how much, when to taper etc.

Definitely more cost effective than gastrogaurd.

I can scamper and search later but if you search Nexium it will come up.

I have no idea about gastrogaurd as I treated with Nexium pre scope being a poor bar rat. I haven’t had a case of ulcers since.
 
GreyDot said:
Mine was scoped and had grade 2 squamous. Did 8 weeks (peptizole and sucralfate) at full dose and then 2 weeks half dose, 2 weeks 1/4 dose, so also 12 weeks in total, after which he scoped clear.
This was in 2019 and he hasn't had any recurrance of the ulcer-like behaviour. His was performance/stress related. I have been very consistent since in feeding him an ulcer friendly diet and varying his training to remove as much stress as possible.
Important to tail off the meds.
I would scope, if I were you. I am not one for medicating for something like this when you don't know whether he has them or how severe they are.
Click to expand...
From memory mine was the same as this but for low grade glandular. 3 months total treatment including tapering off. Scoped beginning and at week 8 I think and there was just enough trace at week 8 that he had the further month on reducing doses. His looked really minor near the pylorus but caused extreme anxiety behaviour (very very noise sensitive, if I so much as sniffed near him, or if a bird scarer went off a whole village away he would jump out of his skin, and he was pretty scary to hack out leading up to his first scope). He wasn’t ridden during treatment as it was clear that even though they looked minor he was in a lot of pain.
 
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