I just started my mare on pentosan last week, so it’s nice to hear another positive review! I got mine compounded from Wedgewood and it was marginally more expensive than the Horseprerace ($19.20/ dose vs $16.25/ dose). I did look around a bit for info about horseprerace.com- I’ve heard of them in the past, but I’ve never ordered anything from them. It looks like there are mixed reviews here on COTH. The FDA issued them a warning (regarding some of their other products, not the pentosan) last year, and although they do have a FL address, their owner is in Panama. That seems a bit suspicious to me, but if you’ve used their products before and had good results, then good for you. I’m curious, did they require a prescription? I poked around their website and didn’t see anything about that, but I didn’t try to put an order through so I was wondering if that might come up later.
[QUOTE=DressageLin;8059593]
I am not a scientist, and I know very little about how drugs are comprised. However, it seems to me that there is a risk my horse may not do as well on the platinum version because it is a lower concentration of the “pentosan,” correct?[/QUOTE] That is correct. The dosage is listed as being the same for both (3mg/ kg, so 6mL for a 500kg horse), so with the normal pentosan there would be 1500 mg per 6mL dose, and with the platinum version there would be 1098 mg per 6mL dose. It’s hard to say whether this would be enough to make a difference for your horse.
[QUOTE=DressageLin;8059593]This leads to my next question (which may be basic and silly for you science folks): Is it possible for the gold to have the same concentration level of pentosan and additional glucosamine in the same 50 ml vial?[/QUOTE] Yes, this is possible. Think of it like this: you can dissolve a 50g of salt in 100mL of water. You can then also dissolve 50g of sugar in the same water. Then your water will have 0.5 mg/mL of salt AND 0.5 mg/ mL of sugar. If you had left out the sugar, you’d still have 0.5 mg/ mL of salt in your water. Hope that explanation makes sense!
Hyaluronate sodium is the active ingredient in Legend (at 40mg/ dose)- the horseprerace.com Pentosan platinum would give you 18mg of hyaluronic acid (not sure if that would be an equivalent form?) per dose- also Legend is given IV or IA, not IM. Given the lower dosage and the IM administration, I’m not sure you’d get any benefit. Polysulfated glucosaminoglycans are the active ingredient in Adequan (500mg/ dose) BUT the horseprerace.com products have glucosamine, not PSGAGs. N-acetyl D-glucosamine may help reduce inflammation and promote healthy joints, but it is less effective than the PSGAGs in Adequan. Horseprerace.com’s pentosan platinum would give you 498 mg/ dose, and the pentosan gold would give you 900 mg/ dose- the study I read used a 500 mg dose, so those would be appropriate, but I would confirm that it is the N-acetyl D-glucosamine and not some other form.
So, all in all, IMO you might see some added benefit from the pentosan gold, but I’d be looking into the company’s compounding processes and asking questions before making the switch (or really even just staying with the company at all).
