We’ve decided to run a month of ulcer treatment on a horse who has always been girthy and a bit pissy under saddle at times.
I understand that you do a Gastrogard dose on an empty stomach, wait half an hour, then Sulfacrate then food?
Is it just once a day with Sulfacrate in this scenario? Does the Sulfacrate need to be right after the Gastrogard or can it be later in the day? And is there an optimum window for riding after dosing?
I think there is an ideal (ie - on an empty stomach) and reality.
My gelding had grade 3 ulcers this summer. We did sucralfate 2x a day (AM and late night, so it was closer to 12 hr apart, but I gave it to him with some alfalfa cubes (soaked) and his very small bit of grain. I opted to do that because I didn’t want to do battle with the syringe and then not get stuff in him (plus I had to travel and asking my mom to dose was not feasible). Vet had said I could do it with food, though empty stomach was preferred.
I did do the ulcergard midday, when he came in from turnout, where he had been grazing…sometimes it was later in the day, but about halfway between the sucralfate doses. He got a full tube of that for 5 weeks.
He did scope clear after that regimen, so I think I can say (in my sample of 1) that giving the sucralfate with food and the UG after grazing did not have a negative impact.
Ok. So the Sulfacrate can be mixed in food?
My horse had Grade 4 Squamous Ulcers on scoping last March. He got sucralfate 3x/day on as empty of a stomach as possible. We mixed his with applesauce. Vets wanted him to get it before he ate anything to soothe his tummy first. His morning routine was:
Afternoon routine was:
Night check routine was:
He stayed on sucralfate for 8 weeks and GastroGard full strength (1 tube/day) for six weeks, then a four week taper down to 1/4 tube/day and then we switched to UlcerGard. A couple of months ago I switched to Biostar’s TriGard product because I read somewhere that prolonged use of PPIs (proton pump inhibitors, i.e. omeprazole) will actually prevent your horse’s body from taking up the nutrition from the food they eat through digestion, so I wanted to get him off of that for long term use. I’ve noticed no recurrence of behaviors seen when he had ulcers and he looks phenomenal, so we’re sticking with it.
My vet had me do Sucralfate AM and PM with the feed and Gastrogard at lunchtime. Once off the Gastrogard, kept on Sucralfate 2x a day for I think another a month, then we went down to 1x a day, which I think I did AM. It is hard to actually do the empty stomach thing in practice with an ulcery horse. The vet just advised not giving the two types of meds close together.
Sucralfate is best given on an empty stomach. It’s prescribed up to every 6 hours. It would be ideal to give the sucralfate and gastrogard at different times. Optimum time to ride after dosing would be after the horse has had a chance to eat to reduce amount of time spent riding on an empty stomach.
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