Flair strips for heaves/COPD

[Renn_aissance]

This question is brought to you by my upper respiratory congestion and a box of generic Breathe Right strips.

Has anyone ever tried Flair strips to help manage a horse’s respiratory trouble at rest? My guy has trouble in the summer in dusty, humid conditions; his respiration and HR elevate pretty significantly and I’m always looking for alternatives to putting him on ventipulmin. I was really surprised by how much of a difference the human version of the strip made in my breathing, and it made me wonder if they might help him be more comfortable as well. He just needs to walk from the trough to the shade, and the only info I can find is about horses doing more significant athletic endeavors.

[WildGooseChase]

Heaves, or Recurrent Airway Obstruction (RAO), is more like asthma than COPD (which isn’t used to describe RAO anymore). It’s triggered by things like dust, mold, etc and ends in bronchoconstriction, mucus production etc. Since the flair strip will only open the nostrils, I doubt it would be a miracle level treatment. The entire respiratory system is narrowed and sometimes will spasm.

Will it hurt? Absolutely not. But I wouldn’t put money on it being a viable treatment either.

[Renn_aissance]

Yeah, I’m not expecting miracles.

We don’t have a definitive diagnosis for his difficulty. He doesn’t quite meet criteria for anything, and my vet does not think that doing a scope or further testing for a diagnosis would really change the way we take care of him at this point.

But it seems like a cheap enough experiment. I was really surprised by how well they worked for me. I wasn’t expecting them to do a damn thing.