One of my horses has been on treatment for EPM for 6 days now. His symptoms were extremely mild; the main one was that he is a little funky in the trot. He thinks the legs are doing the correct things, but it feels awkward riding it.
I haven’t seen improvement yet; but like I said it’s been less than a week.
When did you start seeing improvement in your EPM horses?
7-10 days
Around day 4 my gelding got significantly worse. Then about a week after that he improved rapidly. So for him I’d say ~10 days after starting Marquis.
After 7-8 days on Marquis. Started with various mild symptoms. Dr couldn’t believe there really was a problem with no real physical issues. Horse just “was not his normal self” and had shown us things he normally never did. Old Vet, seen lots of weird things and EPM was very new then. Said try the Marquis a week, horse should show improvement in a week or it isn’t going to fix him. Blood test came back positive for EPM. It was a personality improvement first, back to his normal cheerful self, interested in things around him, not grumpy anymore. .
Oh my guy is SOOO grumpy right now. We thought he was just being old and crotchety. He keeps chasing everyone and just being an ass in general to the horses around him.
He’s not on marquis though, the vet gave me a compounded drug that they have seen results with but comes as an apple flavoring and is easier to give. He did seem to get mildly worse around day 3/4 which panicked me a bit but I reminded myself it’s a Protozoa so it’s probably just ‘fighting back’ and causing more symptoms.
Probably about a week. Also I truly believe 10,000 iu’s of natural vitamin E helped. Back story … symptoms were mild. Horse got cast in his stall. Seemed a little wonky about his feet (I’d ask him to give me his front left to pick and he would pick up his right and hold it up like ummmm…. Are you going to clean this ??). Complete return to riding / jumping. I treat him every 6 months with a month of daily dosed compounded antiprotizoal powder. (Diclazuril? Spelling ?) It’s been nearly 2 years since.
That sounds exactly like mine. Every symptom.
I’ll get the vitamin E. I’d also love to know what med you use every 6 months; I’ll talk to my vet about it
Hey @StormyDay. I believe it’s compounded Diclazuril from Wedgewood pharmacy. A packet a day for 30 days. Vets belief was that EPM is particularly endemic in my area. Possums galore. I know some who even treat prophylacticlly 
I will look back and see for sure. It’s time to treat again in April. I went from having a horse who was like riding a sewing machine with broken parts and weirdly lifting his back legs higher than normal to my lovely soft boy who jumps the moon with perfect changes. I did not ride for the entire month of treatment and then brought him back slowly over 3 months but he was himself again personality wise pretty quickly. I buy my vitamin E from Santa Cruz. I prefer the pellets. Just for my peace of mind that he consumes them. He is now on 2 scoops 8000 IU’s a day. Best wishes.
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