What a nightmare. I’m so sorry you and your mare are going through this.
1 Like
I have one that is getting more and more reactive to vaccines. It started after he had colic surgery and his liver took a hit from his intestines shutting down. My other horse is also getting a more pronounced reaction too (just not as severe or dramatic), so I suspect its the brand. My mom’s pony acts like nothing happened.
Last spring my sensitive one had a fever within 8 hours of the shot with banamine given at the time of the shots. He still had a fever 24hrs later with banamine every 12 hours. Ugh this makes me so nervous for the fall flu/rhino shot. If he acts colicy, I start to panic.
We’re going to give him banamine for three days straight and hope it works. We asked about alternatives and our vet group advised that we would still have to do booster shots if we switched to intra-nasal. So no good options other than to not give it to him or do the banamine regime.
Sending jingles!
3 Likes
SO sorry to hear and I am hoping for the best.
For anyone that has a horse that is reactive to flu/rhino, if you haven’t tried the intranasal vaccine, my VERY vax reactive horse has (yet) to react to the IN version.
Interestingly, I always react to the flu shot pretty bad, and got the Flumist vaccine which is a nose one for people. Didnt even remember I got it. Problem there is that Rite Aid was the only place that carried it here, and they closed all their brick and mortars 
Big jingles OP.
6 Likes
Thanks! I’ve considered that but I do most of mine myself so I can spread them out without 5 farm calls. Not sure I trust myself to do the IN. Maybe worth a shot to have the vet do it next time.
3 Likes
Jingles to your mare!!! I’m so sorry to hear this.
One of my ponies had 2 severe reactions to his vaccines (once it was rhino/flu only in the fall and the second time was with a 4 way vaccine the following spring). He foundered both times the next day. He was only 2 years old the first time and was 3 years old the second time (where I finally caught on and put 2 and 2 together). I did xrays and pull blood and he was IR. So the vet said the vaccines just put him over the edge and caused him to founder. He did not look like a metabolic pony, he was very young, body score of 5, no fat pockets, not on grass either times, so he was a head scratcher for my vet but they wanted to test his insulin anyway just in case - I even tested my hay afterwards and it was 5.4% NSC, so low in sugar/starch
I did IN Rhino/Flu with him in the spring as I do show him, and he had 0 reaction to it. The rest of my ponies were ok and I did their normal rounds of IM shots with 0 reactions. Some just have some underlying issues and vaccines tend to just push them over the edge.
I have always been careful with vaccines, split them over 2 weeks, and I titer my dog for minimal vaccines. They always worry me but are needed as I show my ponies and my dog crosses the border. I do think certain vaccines are not needed every year, but they have so little proof and paperwork on horses. Its really frustrating as I’m sure they are not needed every single year, but are required. Trust me, I totally believe in vaccines and treat accordingly, but don’t understand how the same rabies shot is ok for 3 years for a dog (though can be positive for a titer for more years than that), and only 1 year for horses. Same with tetanus, ok for humans for 10 years but only 1 year for horses. Yes I know we are different species, but to have never done any research on horse for this?
9 Likes
I am so sorry for your situation. Jingling and praying like mad from the east coast!
2 Likes
My heart goes out to you. I’m hoping for a big beautiful miraculous turnaround. Sending up jingles.
4 Likes
Sending healing vibes
3 Likes
Sending lots of jingles for your mare. 
1 Like
could you talk to them about fentanyl patches for pain? It’s the safest opioid (in human medicine) for pts in renal failure because it has no active metabolites. They’d have to shave her closely so it gets absorbed, but it seems like it might work.
8 Likes
Oh man, not the update anyone wanted to see 
Praying extra hard for her, this is so unfair
3 Likes
I am so sorry about you mare. Jingling madly for a positive turn.
2 Likes
Sending a cosmic burst of jingles and hopeful karma yours and Skye’s way.
3 Likes
Update — CAUTIOUS OPTIMISM!!! — I talked to the vet this morning… she seemed to have topped out at 5.25 on her creatinine at 4 am with a drop to 5.1 this morning.
They pulled fluids and have given an antihistamine. She is eating and pooping. She is more comfortable than yesterday, but quiet. I would be too!!!
It’s small but the first good news I’ve had since Saturday.
Thanks for all the jingles and support.
So the vet is from Belgium and is doing a US residency. She’s really good, but was a little skeptical of my call to report a vaccine issue. She talked to some of the other vets who had the vaccine companies pay for some big reaction bills. I’m at $7k so that’s fun… anywho - at least she is more willing to talk to the vaccine company for me and give the info.
Nothing. Not one thing was found on this horse for an underlying cause. The ultrasound was normal. Every time we have ever run blood work it was normal her whole life.
So … any advice on dealing with the drug company? The fact we pulled for creatinine and it was normal Friday just before the shot and that they have not found any underlying cause for the kidney reaction gives me some hope the drug company may take this seriously.
61 Likes
I don’t have firsthand experience, but with talking to my vet tech friend, she said that the vaccine manufactures are generally pretty good in compensation for issues as large (and pricey) as OP’s. AND why it is recommended to have a vet administer the vaccines. If you do it yourself you will be outta luck and void anything from the manufacturer.
This spring at my barn, most of the horses reacted to their shots than didn’t. My trainer was hell bent on trying to get them to pay for the banamine which they did NOT cover (which was not surprising to me at all).
10 Likes
I’ve seen two horses go to the hospital for vaccine reactions, and both hospital bills were paid for by the manufacturers without major fight.
5 Likes
I’ve heard of many instances where the vaccine manufacturers paid the vet bills. So I’m really hoping that will be the case for you as well!
On a side note, why did you test creatinine initially? Purely curious. I know some of us do run a panel of bloods yearly or seasonally as part of a general health check routine.
4 Likes
First report the reaction to fda here.https://www.fda.gov/animal-veterinary/report-problem/how-report-animal-drug-and-device-side-effects-and-product-problems
with that in hand, talk to drug manufacturer, letting them know it has been reported.
5 Likes
I wanted a little equiox and we were giving banamine with the vaccine. The UCD vet didn’t have recent bloodwork on file so we checked kidney levels on both horses. It’s a god idea when NSAIDS are involved longer than once or twice a year banamine.
Thank god I did because that gave a baseline. It’s all been so, so strange. We thought about doing a full blood panel, but she’s really healthy so we didn’t.
12 Likes
