ulcers- horse becoming aggressive- anyone else experienced this?

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vanrim

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I am convinced my horse has hind gut ulcers. She was diagnosed with gastric ulcers and these were treated but her behaviour did not change. She refuses to go into trot - ridden but also when loose schooled. When loose schooled she has become increasingly aggressive and rears and comes at you with her ears pinned back - yet you can lead her around the manege in hand in walk and she is a sweetheart. I cannot convince my vet that there is something worn and I am VERY WORRIED about her. I have read that horses with hind gut ulcers can become aggressive because of the pain. Has anyone else experienced this? I just don't know what to do.
 
vanrim said:
I am convinced my horse has hind gut ulcers. She was diagnosed with gastric ulcers and these were treated but her behaviour did not change. She refuses to go into trot - ridden but also when loose schooled. When loose schooled she has become increasingly aggressive and rears and comes at you with her ears pinned back - yet you can lead her around the manege in hand in walk and she is a sweetheart. I cannot convince my vet that there is something worn and I am VERY WORRIED about her. I have read that horses with hind gut ulcers can become aggressive because of the pain. Has anyone else experienced this? I just don't know what to do.
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Do your vets stock the succeed fecel test? If you do the test and get a positive albumin result it will show your horse has some hind gut problem.
My horse does have a hind gut problem but I don't know if she has ulcers with it. She did scope with stomach/pyloric/doudenum ulcers last March. She has recently had two succeed tests three weeks apart both positive albumin, negative blood which means she has a hind gut issue (which I already knew anyway). She also has quite bad teeth problems. Usually she is a sweet kind horse but sometimes she is very grumpy and aggresive in the stable, but never once she as a headcollar on and never outside the stable although sometimes she can be really stupid and spooky outside. She is five years old and unbroken.
 
My WB had a pyloric ulcer and my vet treated this along with a low grade normal one with gastrogard and sucralfate. She worked in the USA and this was the successful treatment route used there.
Following the treatment I sent my horse to a holistic vet as his ulcers were just symptomatic of a chronic sacro illiac dysfunction problem for which I got LOU for him. My horse was extremely aggressive and this aggression only improved mildly following the ulcer treatment. Yours could have another primary problem?
The holistic vet treated the SI problem and advised me to follow a 6 week herbal supplement regime of green clay and chlorella as GG kills off all the good bacteria in the hind gut and this needs to be reestablished. If you search green clay and chlorella you will find my previous threads. Feel free to pm me re finding the route cause of your horses problem. I will help all I can.
 
Yes, short version is, my horse was being treated for grade 4 stomach ulcers but his behaviour actually worsened, and he started becoming increasingly difficult to move forward under saddle, which culminated in a lameness work up that showed not much. The ulcers took forever to heal, and a conversation with another vet at the practice led to us suspecting hind gut issues. She recommended me rite-trac as it also buffers the hind gut (contains equishure which they now sell separately), and frankly within a week I had a different horse.

When he has flair ups his behaviour is hideous, I imagine the pain must be awful for them. I'd seek the opinion of another vet tbh. You could try a tub of equishure and if you see an improvement you probably have your answer, but if you have a supportive vet that is far better since they can access prescription only meds like sucralfate.

Good luck!
 
Horse is going to be scoped again on Tuesday to see if the original course of Peptizole really did clear the ulcers she had. I will post to say what we find.
 
Although our story did not have a happy ending, (see my prev threads about Teddy), one thing that made a difference to him was Equishure. The difference was noticed within a couple of days. It is expensive but if you are not getting any joy with the vets it certainly wont do any harm to trial some. Good luck!
 
I was gutted when I read you had lost Teddy as you tried so hard to make him better. I have been using the Equishure on both of mine but I haven't seen a difference yet - the specialist they are going to on Tuesday thinks they could both have gastric ulcers as well as low level inflammation of the hind gut.




stilltrying said:
Although our story did not have a happy ending, (see my prev threads about Teddy), one thing that made a difference to him was Equishure. The difference was noticed within a couple of days. It is expensive but if you are not getting any joy with the vets it certainly wont do any harm to trial some. Good luck!
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Equishure turned my boy around - I ran out for a couple of days and it was noticeable. He was scoped however and didn't have foregut ulcers so thankfully we haven't had to deal with them. I would say if you have any doubts over the hind gut it would be worth trying Equishure, if it's going to make a difference it will within a week.
 
vanrim said:
I was gutted when I read you had lost Teddy as you tried so hard to make him better. I have been using the Equishure on both of mine but I haven't seen a difference yet - the specialist they are going to on Tuesday thinks they could both have gastric ulcers as well as low level inflammation of the hind gut.
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Thank you, yes such a shame. His owner tried so hard with his management, stripping his feed right back to just plain chopped hay for chaff, ensuring he only drank water that had been left out in sunlight....but he was still ever so unhappy. Out of interest who is the specialist you are seeing?
 
Both my horses went to Leahurst Equine Hospital to see Fernando Malalana. The gelding had eaten his bed overnight so when they scoped all they could see was shavings. He is going to be rescoped on Friday. The mare was scoped and found to have grade iii/iv gastric ulcers in the pylorus (the exit of the stomach). Fernando explained that ulcers in this region are very painful and difficult to treat. He said they would require more than a month's treatment (a direct contradiction of the idiot vet who said I would see an improvement within days of treatment and that if she was still napping and refusing to budge after a month's treatment then she was just plain naughty). The plan is to treat for a month, rescope, treat for a further month and rescope. I have never been so relieved that my horse has got something wrong as it was so hard to convince people that she wasn't just being naughty. They are now living out 24/7 and only eating grass, some hay and an alfalfa chaff feed in the morning. I am just so sorry for the horses that it has taken over 4 months to get a proper diagnosis and treatment plan.




stilltrying said:
Thank you, yes such a shame. His owner tried so hard with his management, stripping his feed right back to just plain chopped hay for chaff, ensuring he only drank water that had been left out in sunlight....but he was still ever so unhappy. Out of interest who is the specialist you are seeing?
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My boy was scoped today and found to have grade1-2 with some old ones and some new ones. I'm just waiting for the report to come but I will still treat with Gastrogurd for gastric and Succeed for hind gut as the vet thinks there are some there too.

I will be refining his diet slightly and will make sure that he has some fibre before he is exercised. Will see how he gets on in the next month.
 
I would recommend using succeed! My mare tested positive in the succeed test for stomach and hind gut ulcers and after 90 days of the supplement, she has now tested negative. She feels amazing and is no longer tense, has lots of energy and is back jumping brilliantly! I wish more people and vets would consider ulcers as a cause of behaviour/ performance issues!
 
Can I ask why your vet thinks there may also be hind gut ulcers as well as the gastric ulcers? What symptoms / behaviour was your horse showing?



paulineh said:
My boy was scoped today and found to have grade1-2 with some old ones and some new ones. I'm just waiting for the report to come but I will still treat with Gastrogurd for gastric and Succeed for hind gut as the vet thinks there are some there too.

I will be refining his diet slightly and will make sure that he has some fibre before he is exercised. Will see how he gets on in the next month.
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They are now on Gatro Guard for stomach ulcers but I am also giving them Equishure in case they have hind gut problems too. What symptoms / behaviour did your horse show? Where was he lame - the right hind?




alsxx said:
Yes, short version is, my horse was being treated for grade 4 stomach ulcers but his behaviour actually worsened, and he started becoming increasingly difficult to move forward under saddle, which culminated in a lameness work up that showed not much. The ulcers took forever to heal, and a conversation with another vet at the practice led to us suspecting hind gut issues. She recommended me rite-trac as it also buffers the hind gut (contains equishure which they now sell separately), and frankly within a week I had a different horse.

When he has flair ups his behaviour is hideous, I imagine the pain must be awful for them. I'd seek the opinion of another vet tbh. You could try a tub of equishure and if you see an improvement you probably have your answer, but if you have a supportive vet that is far better since they can access prescription only meds like sucralfate.

Good luck!
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