Who has experience of gastric ulcers?

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Ziggy_

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What made you suspect gastric ulcers and what were your horses' symptoms? Are certain types of horse more predisposed to ulcers? How did you treat it and what changes have you made to your horses' management?

Thanks
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My friends elderly TB had suspected ulcers. He was getting colic at least once a week and was losing weight. The vet suggested a supplement called 'Equine Gold' and he's been fine ever since.

You can also have an endoscopy (sp) done to confirm ulcers.
 
What made me suspect - had been in a competiton home, very little turn out, windsucked and cribbed, grumpy near food, a growling sound when eating, trying to bite when girth was being done up,not going forward under saddle......

Treatment - haven't had him scoped have treated him as if he has them. Use Global Herbs Acid X and aloe vera juice.

Management - lives out 24/7 for as much of the year as possible, daily turnout in winter, always has access to hay, good grazing, feed had been changed to a fibre based feed and is fed a bowl of alfalfa before work every time.

He has been with me for nearly a year and have made all those changes in that time - he is slowly becoming a different horse - something my RI said in my lesson yesterday - but I notice it to in lots of different ways - is definatley a happier horse to be around. He is a WB by the way.
 
Sadly yes, in a boring amount of depth.

Symptoms:
Started with him chipping in combination fences SJ, had vet out twice, basically got told nothing wrong with him (implication was it was my riding), took bloods etc - nothing. This escalated over some months to the point where he was stopping SJ and then to the point where he would not jump a stick. He was still going Novice BE XC clear at this point. No other real symptoms, but then he's always been a miserable sod in the stable!

Predisposition:
Competition horses and racehorses. 63% of competition horses and 97% of racehorses have ulcers. It is to do with management, workload, feed, stress levels and sometimes (in the case of my horse) bacterial infection.

Treatment:
1 month on a tube of gastrogard a day, 50ml of peptobismol twice a day and antepsin tablets daily. This cleared the splash ulcers but had no impact on the ulcers at the base of the stomach. So he then had 1 tube of gastrogard a day and 100 antibiotic tablets a day for a month. This cleared the ulcers at the base of the stomach. This was last November and despite trying literally everything he is still 50kg underweight and doing cowpat like poos. The vet has run out of ideas and TBH so have I
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On the plus side he is performing better than ever, it's just I have a feed bill now which I never used to have in the summer!!

Mangement:
He was always managed with ulcers in mind because I knew how prevalent they are in competition horses - so had ad lib haylage when in, fibre-based diet, low in cereals, out 24/7 in summer and every day in winter. However the bacterial infection was the real problem and I couldn't guard against that.

Main changes are that he now has alfalfa twice a day (it is good for ulcer horses), is fed chaff 30mins before any exercise (again the high fibre alfalfa which has straw in it so he has a buffer layer to prevent the splash ulcers), I have cut all molassed feed out of his diet (so he is on Mollichaff not anything made by dengie), I use Protexin as pre and probiotics are meant to help with ulcers, I use a balancer to ensure he has all vits and minerals (wondered if bacterial infection was due to weaker immune system due to no feed and therefore possible vit/min imbalance - no proof of this!) and am using speedibeet for weight. He used to have tiger oats for 3 days before an event and I have cut these out (though have been told they are fine to feed).

Beyond that I was doing everything I could anyway - so its the feeding 30mins before exercise which is the main change I'd say.

ETA: No matter what anyone tells you, the only diagnostic tool is endoscopy and the only reliable treatment with proven results from clinical trials is gastrogard (a proton pump inhibitor) and sometimes antibiotics. Everything else will be likely to be either be masking the symptoms rather than helping the ulcers heal, or won't be working at all. Rest helps to reduce the clinical symptoms of them, but unless you treat them you will see a recurrence when you up the workload again.
 
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You might find this website helpful. You can also do a risk assessment for your horse.

http://www.equinegastriculcers.co.uk/what_are.html

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Be aware that that site is run by Merial. Who own the license for Gastrogard. Which is the only approved treatment on the market for ulcers. And which despite being a generic drug which costs literally pence to produce and is available v cheaply for humans, costs an absolute fortune for horses, and will continue to do so for about another year until they license expires.
 
Is it the same bacterium in horses as in people (heliobacter pylori)?

Wouldn't wish an ulcer on any creature...had one myself, and it was awful.
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Is it the same bacterium in horses as in people (heliobacter pylori)?

Wouldn't wish an ulcer on any creature...had one myself, and it was awful.
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They think so - but every time they try and isolate it from the horse's stomach it dies! So they treat with the human antibiotics and in 80% of cases not cleared up by gastrogard alone, it seems to work.

Now just imagine me, with a 16.3 horse, at 5 foot tall, taking 50 of those tablets you took, trying to dissolve the bloody things in a syringe of hot water and shove them down his neck twice a day. He hated me, I hated the tablets, and everything but everything within 100ft of the yard was covered in bright green goo. They did not dissolve properly so would often jam up the syringe, the whole thing was a bloody nightmare!!
 
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SpottedCat - have you tried aloe vera juice to help your horses weight and poo problem?

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Yes. And tuffrock foal plus. And Biotal Equine Gold. And Topspec balancer alone. And doing nothing. And some other powder the vet gave me to put in his feed. Now on to Protexin, which frankly I hold out little hope for but they were kind to me on the stand and did me a good deal so it was cheaper than Biotal which sounds good to me!

The final thing, if I can get the vet to ring me back, is to try Succeed - but you can only get it through vets and TBH at £75 for month I want it to go through the insurance if possible. I don't hold out any hope for that either - everyone has run out of ideas.
 
Thanks for the replies.

I was just reading the posts below about chaff and ulcers, etc and it got me thinking.

My horse has previously been in a home where she was fed limited roughage and lots of hard feed and a competition home before that. She's always been a stressy type, poor doer and often looks poor in general with a dull coat etc. She has always bitten when you groom her belly and girth her up.

Last summer I did the Winergy feed trial (alfalfa based complete feed) and for the few weeks the trial lasted I seemed to have a different horse.

Over last winter she was fed cereal etc (although did have ad lib hay) and lost a lot of weight and her behaviour reverted to how it was previously. Into the summer (out 24/7 on ex-dairy pasture) and she hasn't improved and although she's a healthy weight, her coat still looks dull and she just isn't quite 'right'. And she's a stroppy madam with it.

I've been pondering gastric ulcers for a while and reading about feeding alfalfa before work in the thread below made me wonder. (Everything else has been checked and re-checked, by the way and she is wormed regularly).

Does it sound like a possibility for her and if so, is there anything I can do/feed to help without going down the scoping route? (I'm guessing thats pretty expensive).
 
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Is it the same bacterium in horses as in people (heliobacter pylori)?

Wouldn't wish an ulcer on any creature...had one myself, and it was awful.
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They think so - but every time they try and isolate it from the horse's stomach it dies! So they treat with the human antibiotics and in 80% of cases not cleared up by gastrogard alone, it seems to work.

Now just imagine me, with a 16.3 horse, at 5 foot tall, taking 50 of those tablets you took, trying to dissolve the bloody things in a syringe of hot water and shove them down his neck twice a day. He hated me, I hated the tablets, and everything but everything within 100ft of the yard was covered in bright green goo. They did not dissolve properly so would often jam up the syringe, the whole thing was a bloody nightmare!!

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Oh you poor poor thing!
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Antibiotics taste awful, and at least I knew why I was taking them! I had to take 2 kinds, a PPI, and peptobismol. And I guess at 50 tablets, you can't just shove them in 50 apples, either!!
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Does it sound like a possibility for her and if so, is there anything I can do/feed to help without going down the scoping route? (I'm guessing thats pretty expensive).

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Yes, it is a possibility.

Scoping is, relatively speaking, cheap - £200 or thereabouts including sedation and interpretation.

Drugs are horrifically expensive - when on the gastrogard horse was costing over £200 a WEEK in medication.

Get yourself some decent vets fee insurance cover if you are going to go down this route. Personally I would never try and treat this without the diagnosis from endoscopy and using a proton pump inhibitor (so basically gastrogard) because they are the only clinically proven methods out there and the change in performance for my horse just shows the level of discomfort he was in - he owes me nothing and I owe it to him to give him the best possible treatment.
 
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Oh you poor poor thing!
shocked.gif
Antibiotics taste awful, and at least I knew why I was taking them! I had to take 2 kinds, a PPI, and peptobismol. And I guess at 50 tablets, you can't just shove them in 50 apples, either!!
crazy.gif


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Yes, they do taste awful, and my sheer stupidity at trying to avoid the syringing and make him eat them some other way (seriously, apples would have been fine by me!) meant he completely point blank refused to eat, would not touch Winergy which I had him on before all this precisely because it is fibre based, and I now have to feed expensive topspec because it was the only thing I could give him which he believed was not some evil attempt on my part to poison him.

I now have to hide anything in a syringe and catch him with headcollar and tie him up or you can't get close to him - stable or field - he just won't let you within 5 feet of his head! Can't say I blame him.
 
SpottedCat I'm using Succeed at the moment but was wondering about stopping it because at the moment looking after his stomach is leaving me permenantly skint. Is it really meant to be that good?

He's had a course of Gastroguard & has been on U-Gard Plus for a couple of years. The U-Gard seemed to make a real difference to him - poos a better consistency, more even tempered, eating better - so I won't stop that & anyway the hospital said to continue it indefinately. The Succeed was suggested by my vet. It's hard to tell if it or the Gastroguard have/are making a difference as he's not yet back in work after colic surgery.

Obviously I don't want to stop things that will help but at the same time I don't have bottomless finances - U-Gard, Succeed, keeping a companion for him & currently paying two lots of DIY because he's far happier in open sided stables & on better grass that my normal YO can't offer are all adding up to a lot of money each month!
 
I've heard that licorice can help both with human and equine ulcers...not sure what it's supposed to do---soothe symptoms? Anybody know?
 
I have no personal experience of Succeed, but when I was in the USA for six months it was recommended to me out there repeatedly, and I have had a LONG phone conversation with the scientist who helped develop it and he set my mind at rest re clinical trials and efficacy (I have a biology degree and cannot see the point in buying things to help this kind of condition which have not been clinically trialled because none of them are cheap!). The only ones which have been clinically trialled are Neighlox and Succeed.

The people who import Neighlox refused point blank to give me a sample of it and I watched several horses in the USA pick it out of their feeds - no way am I spending that much money on something which he potentially won't eat. Additionally my vet told me with all these supplements such as neighlox, u-gard etc they really only work if you feed at least 3 times a day because the length of time they stay in the stomach for is so short. As he seems to be the country's expert on gastric ulcers and deals with the British Event team's horses with ulcers, his opinion holds a lot of sway with me. I can't consistently feed 3 times a day so do not supplement with things which claim to help alter stomach pH.

The guy who helped develop succeed was v open about why their clinical trials are not published, and it is because they want to sell as a supplement not as a pharmacutical product (for various valid reasons), but apparently if they publish clinical trials it shows they are pharmacutical? I have no idea if this is accurate BTW! Again, I would not pay for it 'on spec' at that price, but I will put it through my insurance and see if it helps. Not a chance he will stay on it long term unless trying it works and taking him off it causes the dung to become loose again - like you I am not made of money!
 
The part about publishing clinical data making the product pharmaceutical is correct, once you make a medical statement it falls into a category called 'medicinal by Presentation' which means it requires a marketing authorisation and a different set of standards from the VMD (the police of the vet medicines) this is very costly etc, etc, which is why there is very little (or often none) information about trials done on 'supplements'. its a very frustrating area, add to that the complexity of the EU & feed additives, which is another story again (i won't bore you)

In summary, don't dismiss something you think might work due to a lack of published data, alot of companies do do trial work, but becasue of the info above can't present it .... see this website for more info.... VMD
 
I did think it must be correct - he explained all that but I forgot it as have a mind like a sieve only useful for counting bats one at a time
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The converse point though is that if I can't see any clinical data on efficacy, and if none can be published/provided on a suppliment, it means the door is wide open for any old nonsense to get shoved in a tub and sold to me for ridiculous sums of money!

Given that there are products out there which have had clinical trials (all be it unpublished in their full form, neighlox and succeed being two of them, though certain info is available if you ask the right people), and given that all these products are much of a muchness cost-wise, to me it makes no sense at all to use something which hasn't been trialled (if that makes any sense?!), unless my vet tells me to use it and has a v good reason why it is better.
 
yes, that makes sense, and i'm sure you're scientifically clued up enough to add the required pinch of salt when it comes to the verification of trial work & whether things are 'independent' or not, etc, etc, - you know what i mean!

(its a mine field, i wade almost daily, i could trade for some bats if you fancy!)
 
Thanks SpottedCat & racingdemon, I think I'll have a chat with the vet before I buy any more. I know the U-Gard helps him so I won't drop that, but I'm not sure that the Succeed is having a huge effect either way.
 
ziggy ... loads of high fibre feeds .. alpha a sugar beet. ad lib hay. low protein hayhage. ad lib turnout less box management (they compete out of field fine) blue chip dynamic ?.. the one with pro /pre biotics and natural yogurt, need to de stress so fibre 24 hrs a day
 
cimetidine a POM human drug if you can get them to eat it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ou need a friendly gp to do a prescription. otherwise ad lib fibre yogurt, grass and little stress
 
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