Ulcers?

[Lukey D.]

How can you tell if a horse has ulcers? How dangerous are they? What causes them? Is there preventative medication for it? How expensive is that? Thanks

[Luci]

I think if you do a search on "ulcers" or "Gastrogard" you will find a ton of great information from everyone, including the different meds used to treat and prevent ulcers. Love this board for help like that.

Here is a link to Gastrogard's web site that is helpul too, especially their FAQ section:
gastrogard.us.merial.com/

You can also look up lam9's posts about treating Mermaid this year and there is always Porter's strory. When I worried about Royal, I went back to their posts and it was so helpful.

Mods, ulcers seem to be such a common theme that we deal with, any possibility of a FAQ sticky about them?

[gemic]

What about a horse health forum with threads about ulcers, feed, etc? That way there is an easy way to find that stuff and people don't need to ask as much? It's usually the first thing new members want to know =)

[TeachU2Ride]

To give some quick answers:

1. Studies have shown ulcers to be present in about 85% of the performance horse population (track horses are even more likely to have them).

2. They can occur in the stomach, and along the entire gastrointestinal tract.

3. Horses fed high amounts of concentrates, low amounts of fiber and kept in a stall for long periods of time are at the greatest risk, but ulcers may also appear in otherwise healthy horses due to stress in as little as four hours.

4. The horse's stomach produces acid at all times (unlike humans, who produce acid only when food is present). So if the horse is unable to graze freely and ingest small amounts of food almost continuously (as he is designed to do), the excess acid can cause ulcers. Also... The horse's stomach is only protectively lined in the bottom portion, so hard exercise which contracts the gut can splash acid upward to unprotected areas.

5. The least expensive way to protect against ulcers is a high-fiber diet and lots of grazing time. There are also many ulcer preventative supplements on the market now - fed daily, they show good results.

6. A horse with active ulcers is quickest healed with omeprazole (Gastroguard), the only product proven to be successful. But altering the diet and turnout situation to provide more continuous fiber can also reduce and eliminate ulcers.

7. The least expensive way to test for ulcers is Succeed Occult Blood Test. It's about $40 from the vet and no needles are involved - you just drop a fresh poop ball in the solution and read the results with a test strip in a few minutes. The test shows ulcers in both the stomach and GI tract and is a less expensive and certainly non-invasive alternative to the old method of using an endoscope (which only showed ulcers in the stomach).

8. Signs of ulcers include tooth grinding, frequent small colics, bucking, pinning ears and swishing tail when girthed, refusal to go readily forward, kicking out at the leg, poor appetite, failure to gain weight, rough coat, depression, etc. These signs can also point to other issues, but when combined with a living situation that includes not a lot of grazing and/or hay, ulcers are frequently No. 1 on the list of explanations.

9. Ulcers are dangerous because they can involve such a large area of the stomach wall or intestine, which may result in perforation (resulting in peritonitis, usually fatal). But not every horse has them to this degree, of course. At the milder end of the spectrum, they are just an uncomfortable condition that can keep your horse from feeling and performing his best.

10. Preventative supplements are available from most major vet supply catalogs and are not expensive on a daily basis. Treatment with omeprazole (usually 30 days minimum) runs about $650.

[Lukey D.]

Would it be worth it to do that test if Luke is outside 24/7 with hay? He doesn't show any of the sings you mentioned besides sometimes balking when he's mad under saddle. Should every horse be tested?

[gemic]

If Luke isn't showing signs and has lots of hay I wouldn't worry about the test. I tested my guy with the fecal test twice, both were negative but I still think he might have them as he gets belly aches easily when stressed about something. If you start to see symptoms then look into options.

[Administrator]

We'll go ahead and make this the first thread on the new Health Horse care forum. ;D

[gemic]

Thanks Goalie!

[Lukey D.]

Thanks!

[TeachU2Ride]

gemic said:

If Luke isn't showing signs and has lots of hay I wouldn't worry about the test. I tested my guy with the fecal test twice, both were negative but I still think he might have them as he gets belly aches easily when stressed about something. If you start to see symptoms then look into options.

One of my guys had frequent mini-colics due to stress for years. No ulcers, but eventually had a BIG colic and surgery. The culprit - a small piece of malformed intestinal wall that caused an intussuception (intestine telescoped into itself). Horses who have past parasite damage can also suffer from frequent mini-colics, and of course there are other causes. Ulcers are "good" in this way - at least you can get rid of them!

[gemic]

How can you test for malformed intestine? I don't think it's parasite damage, he was homebred and well loved by his past owner. It's strange, if I can keep him calm he doesn't show signs of pain. Even on calm and cool I can intentionally stress him (take Dunkin out of his site while he's stalled) and he doesn't show signs of pain. I can't figure him out. Vet keeps thinking ulcer, but test was negative and he doesn't respond to ranitidine.

Sorry for stealing your thread Lukey =)

[Lam9]

This site is great and helped me out with Mermaid. It also discusses generic omeprazole for about $160 a month (note: does not work quite as well as gastrogard).

www.lunatunesfreestyles.com/ulcers.htm

Here is the < $10 test I used on Mermaid.
1) Gave her a half bottle of Maalox, waited 15 minutes.
2) Tacked her up, and her ulcer-type symptoms vanished (she let me brush her stomach and wasn't girthy). This was the proof I needed that she had ulcers.

This obviously isn't as good of a test as the vet can give, but it will give you a quick idea of what's going on. Another test vets will recommend is to try 10 days of omeprazole, and if you see an improvement, your horse likely has ulcers.

After 3 months omeprazole for Mimi, she put on weight and the other symptoms vanished.

[gemic]

Killi is so fussy I don't know that I can get him to eat Maalox. He wouldn't eat dinner the other night because it had probios mixed in his mash.

[Lam9]

Put it in a syringe and squirt it up there Mimi resisted this until she realized it made her feel better.

[TeachU2Ride]

Sorry - no test that I know of for intestinal wall integrity. I suppose you *might* get lucky with an ultrasound, but there's so much to the equine intestine it would not be able to visualize the whole length. For Hootie, it was just a "lucky" find... five hours on the table and the surgeon up to his shoulders in guts.

gemic - What's he doing that makes you think he's in pain?