Interesting. I would think that vets regardless of practice location would be constantly reading up on what is being used, tried. Perhaps ones that don’t use it feel the results they have read about doesn’t warrant the exercise? I seem to remember first using the “treatment” 8+ years ago? Pretty sure it is the same “mix” that was being used to treat EPM?
If only :no:
So many vets still don’t know about/understand some things that aren’t even that new anymore, just “new” since they started practicing - parasite resistance, newer and better tests for EPM, some don’t “believe in” IR and many don’t believe horses can even get Lyme, no idea what EPSM/PSSM is, and more.
Lyme is a very very bad disease. I think it’s worth vaccinating against it (even without proven efficacy studies in horses) simply on the chance that it will help. (The vaccine is not that expensive either). My vet offers it routinely.
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There are several Lyme vaccines labeled for dogs, one of these vaccines has been used fairly extensively in horses and does not interfere with laboratory test results. Current research suggests that horses differ from dogs in their response to Lyme disease, as most will not become ill.
My vet doesn’t recommend lyme vaccine it’s not approved for horses. Once you get lyme disease you have it ,never can get rid of it. Even if treated the spirochete go into hiding once antibiotics are started they hide in muscle and can change form. They pretty much hide any where the antibiotic can’t get them.
I’ve read some where giving the vaccine to horses who have been sick with lyme disease can cause serious life threatening problems. I won’t vaccinate my horses with a dog vaccine that isn’t approved for equines your asking for trouble.
I know vets who give the vaccine,but it’s a dog approved vaccine…we don’t give our dogs horse approved vaccines so why do horses with dog approved ones. NOT SMART in my book.Don’t care if everyone else uses it i personally won’t give it to my horses.
#1: I’m not a vet. My previous horse had lyme disease and was subsequently vaccinated for lyme (after she was treated with doxy). She did not develop any life threatening disease because of the vaccine. Lyme disease, on the other hand, is life-threatening, at least to some horses (and humans).
If you don’t want to vaccinate your horse with a dog vaccine, that’s fine. But you certainly can ask your vet about it.
The article that JB posted above is a 2015 article from The Horse that documents a fairly small study of the efficacy of the dog vaccine in horses: http://www.thehorse.com/articles/366…onse-in-horses
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Once they have lyme disease they have it for life NEVER get rid of it even if treated. My horse test positive even when not showing signs. I will not vaccinate him it can cause serious complications so to each there own,i’ll pass. My vet DOESN’T Recommend it so i’ll GO WITH what my vet says. not some one on the internet with no vet training thank you very much. Now i’ll bow out of this conversation…
it’s certainly your right to not want to give things not approved for a given species.
But I hope you realize off-label uses are done quite frequently, in the grand scheme of things, because of no other choices.
- Pergolide before there was Prascend.
- Previcox before there was Equiox
- Domperidone before there was Equidone
- pretty sure some hormone manipulation was done in mares before any of those became approved for horses (and probably still done).
- Zantac certainly isn't approved for horses, neither is sucralfate or cimetidine
- Animax - fantastic ointment to deal with proud flesh, not approved for horses, but widely used
Never say never. You recently said you’d never use Excede for your horses, yet you just did
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I live very near Gumtree and Lyme seems to be a huge issue here (although knock on wood, I’ve never personally had an issue with it). Vet clinic’s treatment is doxy and if that doesn’t work tetracycline- they were “meh” on the vaccine. An endurance acquaintance recently had a vet recommend the dog vaccine given every 6 weeks throughout tick season. I’m not sure I like that idea at all though- that’s a lot of vaccines.
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Psssst. Equioxx and Previcox were released at the same time. The Equioxx paste was just ridiculously expensive and so we all used the Previcox pills instead.
But I’m getting caught up in the minutia and your point VERY MUCH still stands. Is doxy even licensed for horses? Or oxytet? A quick google isn’t clear, but I’m thinking both of those are off label, too.
Dang, are you sure? I could have sworn Previcox was used solely, as there wasn’t an equine version. Oh well, that’s good to know.
Wedgewood has doxy listed as “no fda-approved veterinary products”.
gumtree- I am in your general area and have never heard of using doxy and Marquis for Lyme treatment so it is not standard in our area. Doxy alone is the go to for most of the vets and maybe Oxy tet. I am only 45 minutes from you. Maybe because you are so much closer to NB Center it is different or it is standard you your vet practice.
Our barn has 5 different vet practices that clients use. To my knowledge none of them use the Marquis with the doxy. To be fair 1 of the 5 is an old vet that I doubt has bothered to learn anything new in the last 30 years. That is not the case with the other 4 practices.
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We had barn day last week and the vet was offering Lyme vaccine for those who are interested. He said they have had horses who were vaccinated come down with the disease but they weren’t as sick as he otherwise would have expected them to be. My horse had Lyme probably about 8 or so years ago but it wasn’t a bad case. He was treated with doxy for 6 weeks and came out of it just fine. I passed on the vaccine, but I know several people did opt for it.
Veterinary biologics are licensed by USDA/APHIS, not FDA.
have to meet some level of efficacy standard, unless it’s an “emergency” vaccine, in which case it only has to prove safety. If it’s deemed safe, and then approved, it can be revoked for not being effective enough. That’s what happened with the EPM vaccine. Given that the PHF vaccine is only about 75% effective, I can only imagine how real-world ineffective the EPM vaccine was. OR, maybe the PHF vaccine is allowed to be so relatively ineffective because it’s known there are multiple strains, only 1 of which is affected by the vaccine.
Lyme is really tricky, and it’s turning out to be trickier by the day it seems. Horses can test negative but have it. I did read something fairly recently which all but proved that Lyme can hide out in parasites in the brain, which is just creepy as hell :eek: So it’s difficult to get enough horses who can be PROVEN to have Lyme, in order to prove the vaccine works because of being unable to infect the unvaccinated.
“parasites in the brain” ? What type of parasites are we talking about here?
Edit–saw your subsequent post–off to read about it.
Having looked at the nematode/Borrelia “literature”, I’m breaking out a sizeable salt shaker.
It looks pretty bogus. Especially since nowhere are the nematodes named.
Noe of it has been published in any journal that I could find, even though the alleged discoverer of these nematodes has an extensive bibliography of Lyme disease-related publications.
I’m going to quit worrying about brainworms for the nonce.
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