Equine Osteopathy: Questions

[JB]

@sparkygrace

Without knowing my mare’s history, it’s hard to say if she has developed a resistance to certain classes of drugs because I don’t know her deworming history.

the issue is that the vast majority of strongyles around the world, are highly resistant to fenbendazole, and only a bit less resistant to pyrantel pamoate, due to a long history of world-wide over- and mis-use. So it’s not her that has the resistance, it’s the parasite load she carries, obtained through however many different places she’s been ingesting infective larva of resistant adults. Her known history suggests lots of exposure to resistant parasites, and likely not nearly enough effective deworming

And no, there aren’t different species in different countries, all the equine parasites are well-documented and we know them all

It’s still worth discussing with your vet, but the current “use a PP, re-check in 6 weeks” isn’t terribly hopeful. The most absolutely up to date parasite practices are in the link above, and you can read about the resistance issues and how to work around them. We, owners, have to become educated. We have that bandwidth. Vets do too, honestly, it doesn’t take that much time, and I honestly don’t understand why SO MANY vets are still giving out information that was outdated 30 years ago

[sparkygrace]

@JB

Vets do too, honestly, it doesn’t take that much time, and I honestly don’t understand why SO MANY vets are still giving out information that was outdated 30 years ago

I guess we would need to ask them, right? If the Panacur Power Pac consistently showed poor or no results, I doubt a competent vet would continue to suggest using it. I will ask my vet that very question. Have you seen good results?

[JB]

@sparkygrace

If the Panacur Power Pac consistently showed poor or no results, I doubt a competent vet would continue to suggest using it.

“competent” isn’t well enough defined here. Honestly, deworming is a subject that many otherwise really good vets, are just behind on. Plus, 6 weeks is not the timeframe in which to test efficacy, and with a FEC of 1100, that’s pretty important.

it’s just not new information that the PP is not all that effective in most places
2014 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25285937/
2015 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26477278/

The updated parasite guidelines linked above

Internal-Parasite-Guidelines_Updated.pdf

Appendix B table 1, cyathostomins (small strongyles, the ones that encyst, but it’s the adults who are shedding the eggs showing up in the FEC) listed as widespread resistance

“moxidectin generally maintains efficacy against adult parasites within the intestinal
lumen, whereas fenbendazole does not (”

Have I seen good results? No, see one of my last comments. 12 years ago I did a FECRT on my then 2yo and fenbendazole failed miserably.

[FjordBCRF]

@sparkygrace

I guess we would need to ask them, right? If the Panacur Power Pac consistently showed poor or no results, I doubt a competent vet would continue to suggest using it. I will ask my vet that very question. Have you seen good results?

This isn’t a dig on vets that they aren’t current on every single thing. Just because they may not be up on everything doesn’t mean they are incompetent.

There is so much out there, and science is learning more everyday. It’s the same in the human medical field; I seemingly was more well informed than my PCP when I presented my own case to her on a specific disease that I thought I had. She ultimately agreed and shipped me off to a rheumatologist that was better versed in it.

Nobody knows everything and it takes time to catch up on research.

[evntr95]

Back to the original topic- I once had a very good sport horse vet. She worked in conjunction with an equine osteopath who mostly just did manipulations. The osteopath said my horse had a “worm pattern” and I did the recommended deworming, which felt like a scorched earth protocol, with my sport horse vet’s blessing. Mind you, this was many years ago, but even back then fecals were recommended by my college professors and so I regularly ran them, which were consistently low, and also regularly dewormed as suggested by my vet. The whole thing felt out there, but I cared deeply about this horse and was willing to give it a shot.

The horse died about a month after I wrapped up the scorched earth protocol. Necropsy revealed an aneurysm as cause of death, but interestingly it noted evidence of worm migration through his organs on gross examination. Of course it didn’t indicate when this migration happened, but I honestly don’t know enough on the subject to know how long damage would be physically evident. The osteopath stuff can be woo-woo, but I mean, so can chiro, acupuncture, and PEMF. Take it for what you will, but I was mildly surprised to see physical evidence that the osteopath might’ve been on to something.