Does the recommended Prascend dose work for your horse?

[JBD]

My gelding tested positive for Cushings early last fall after becoming sore in his front feet. Since then he was tested again and the numbers were better. However he grew a cushings type coat and that and the continuing laminitic type soreness had us increasing his dose to 2 tablets.

He recently has an MRI and one of the things mentioned was that the lameness could have a unresolved metabolic component. There were several other things to consider which I won’t add to this thread.

The horse still has a very thick coat in July and I have him partially clipped.

Based on his size and the dosage recommendation, I think he will be maxed out at 2.5 to 3 tablets/day. And I’m concerned that’s not going to make a difference. For those who have horses on Prascend, what doses work for you?

[Bluey]

We never went over one tablet a day, in light months 1/2 tablet.

We have added a thyroid supplement now, so far he has fairly normal hair.

Ask your vet if adding a thyroid supplement may help?

[WendellsGirl]

Our big guy had his levels return to normal with 1 tablet daily. However, he is not eating well on it. We tried a winstrol shot which has him eating slightly better but not enough to bounce him back. Im really frustrated with the whole process/disease.

[Hayburner]

My 29 year old started out on 1 pill a day. Stayed on that for maybe 4 years. His tests always came back that the doseage was fine. Last August his acth jumped. Fairly high so we put him on 1 1/2 a day. So far, so good.

What other supplements, etc are you giving.

[RedHorses]

Mine is well within normal range on 1 pill per day. He was barely above normal on half a pill.

But.

Mine was initially tested as a flyer idea after I asked the vet about my horse’s inability to build topline (having ruled out poor feed, lack of exercise, and incorrect exercise). Cushings was raised as a possible cause, and we took advantage of the free test offered a few weeks later. My horse had no other symptoms.

He does have EPSM and has been on a low nsc diet with regular exercise for many years.

I have the impression that his summer coat is slightly longer than normal this year, but I do mean slightly. No one else would think it at all long or thick for a summer coat. It may be my imagination or a product of our late, cold spring. He is very good at growing exactly the coat he needs each winter.

[ryansgirl]

My TB was on one tab/day but we are cutting her back to half tab/day this week based on recent blood work (first tested last summer). We plan on retesting her in a couple months. She has had laminitis over the past four years (with a couple of short-term flare-ups) and was a little overweight (all in check now including low NSC feed) but showed no other Cushings signs (shedded out with no problem, etc). Cushings can be frustrating to say the least.

[AKB]

Our 28 year old was not well controlled on 1 tablet per day, but refused to take more than 1 tablet. Even getting 1 tablet into him was a struggle in this last 6 months. Prascend prevented more laminitis, but he was still hairy.

[tpup]

My 23 yr old Connemara is on 2 tabs a day and has been for about a year. We started with 1.5. Works well for him. I’ll clip him once in summer and once in Fall. He still loves to ride and hack, and jump. Did a cross country school 2 weeks ago! He is having increased abcesses and foot issues over the last year or so. We have luckily had no appetite issues with him. He eats it fine in his a.m. feed.

[JBD]

[QUOTE=Hayburner;8734653]
My 29 year old started out on 1 pill a day. Stayed on that for maybe 4 years. His tests always came back that the doseage was fine. Last August his acth jumped. Fairly high so we put him on 1 1/2 a day. So far, so good.

What other supplements, etc are you giving.[/QUOTE]

He is on Omega Horseshine, Strongid C, Farrier Formula and Simplifly. Nothing else specifically for Cushings other than Prascend. His diet is the same as my IR mare, low starch feed and grass hay. They are both dry lotted.

[2miniB]

Prascend/pergolide might not help with the long coat issue. Consider adding chaste tree berry in addition to his normal prascend dose.

Prascend/pergolide can inhibit insulin release from the pancreas, which can worsen IR. My mare can’t tolerate more than 1mg pergolide, despite a high ACTH. We tried bumping her dose up, but her appetite became ravenous, her weight shot up and she became footsore…all signs of uncontrolled IR.

[newhorsemommy]

My gelding has been on 1 tablet of Prascend for close to 3 years. It controls his ACTH levels (I re-test every fall), but did nothing for his hair coat. I started him on chaste berry powder this spring and he shed out much sooner than previous years. He gets a “heaping” teaspoon daily.

However, my gelding is not IR, so I don’t have the additional complications that come with that.

[Katy_Watts]

[QUOTE=2miniB;8734836]

Prascend/pergolide can inhibit insulin release from the pancreas, which can worsen IR. [/QUOTE]

Citation please? And even if it is true, that would be really good for those horses that are not IR, but have high insulin through other mechanisms. IR is a term no longer used by researchers who acknowledge the various forms of insulin dysregulation ID, the newest term. These include horses with normal insulin sensitivity at the muscular level, but have abnormal insulin response to feeding.

[Wayside]

My Arab mare was in the normal range on 1 tablet a day.

Current pony (~500 lbs) is doing well on the 1/2 tablet dose. He came to me being maintained on that dosage, and I haven’t had him retested since he looks so good.

[beowulf]

Strongid C as in the fly feedthrough? Any chance you might want to stop for a few weeks? I have no data or real reason, just experience - we had a small IR/cushingnoid pony in our care (12h) when I was a BM that was on a daily dewormer and when we started her on the Prascend (1/2 tab) she really went off of her feed and she was a chowhound. At the advice of the vet we ended up dropping all supplements and feeding her MSM, pergo and flax and her appetite returned. She lived on Prascend for 6 years and was put down a couple of weeks ago at a very, very advanced age. My vet doesn’t love fly feed throughs, he thinks it can be more debilitating than good, and has mentioned in the past that he wondered if it affected the efficacy of everything else she was being fed. May be worth a thought.

[amastrike]

[QUOTE=JBD;8734558]
For those who have horses on Prascend, what doses work for you?[/QUOTE]
My now-29 year old TB gelding had an ACTH of 394 (397? something just shy of 400). He’s probably around 1100 pounds, maybe a little less. We started him on 1mg Prascend daily (for the first few days I gave him 0.5mg to minimize side effects).

I don’t know how fast it works, but I swear I noticed a difference in how much he was peeing (which was why I had him tested in the first place) within a few days.

A couple months ago he started peeing more again, so I bumped him up to 1.5mg. I tried taking him back down to 1mg about a month ago, but his pee increased. I’ll probably try 1mg again soon.

By far, the most obvious symptom was him flooding his stall with pee and drinking more. He also grew a woolly mammoth winter coat shed poorly for a few years. With Prascend, he’s back to peeing/drinking like a normal horse, and he no longer resembles a prehistoric mammal 5 months of the year.

So in answer to your question, 1mg-1.5mg works for my horse.

[pony_baloney]

My horse started with Pergolide and needed about 6mg; vet convinced me to switch to Prascend and he did fine with 1mg most of the year, then 1.5mg during the seasonal rise. He’s now on 1.5 year round but I think I’ll have to raise it to 2mg this fall.

I just wish BI would lower the price of Prascend. Don’t they understand that most Cushings horses are older and many are retired; keeping them healthy is difficult enough without adding an expensive drug that they need. My horse is 31 now and still ridden regularly; however, if he were a pasture pet and not my only horse, I don’t think I could afford to maintain him on the correct dose.

[Kachina]

Over 4 years have gradually had to increase Prascend from 1/2 mg to 3 1/2 just recently with the June foot soreness returning. Have to clip her about once a month now in the summer to keep her comfortable. I understand from the famous Equine Cushings website that there are many horses well managed on higher doses without side effects. This mare handles it very well. Our wallet? Not so much.

[onthebit]

We hand out a LOT of prascend pills every day given the population of horses we live with. I’ve not yet met a horse that could maintain an ACTH within normal limits on 1/2 mg (1/2 tablet of prascend) per day, I envy those of you with these horses. I have had a pony with PPID that did well on 1/2 mg per day for a couple of years before needing to go up to 1 mg. We have a few horses on 1.5 mg per day, and a few more on 2 mg (2 prascend tablets) per day.

Even if the ACTH numbers are WNL it doesn’t mean all symptoms, especially the hair, will be kept at bay. I’ve recently re-clipped four of our PPID residents and that was their second body clip of the year. They had their first clips in mid May. Of the 15 PPID residents that were body clipped in May I’ve recently reclipped four and have 2 more to do. There will probably be 2 or 3 more that need a 3rd clip in late August or early September. I’ve tried chaste tree berry with a few to try and get the hair under control (in addition to the prascend) but I’ve never seen a huge difference. There is a slight improvement, but I still have to clip/re-clip them so it seemed pointless to continue giving it to them.

We have a couple of PPID residents that never need to be clipped. The only clue at all that something was off was they both started having ongoing issues with skin funk. I might label it as rainrot but often it was a problem when there had been no rain. We had them tested and both were positive. The skin issues largely resolved once they started on prascend.