"Newer" Liquid Gut Supplements

UPDATE: GutX called me today 2/2/21, a real person! They wanted to see how my horse was progressing. I did not ask for a call nor have I expressed any negative feedback to them, if anything I’ve always posted positive results. I’m impressed with their level of customer service and their desire for me and my horse to have a positive outcome. Horse still doing well, will be dropping to maintenance dose on 2/7.

My gelding starting having some symptoms of ulcers so I started him on Ulcerguard, 1/4 a tube per day. He’d improve dramatically then once I stopped using it, I’d see weight loss and grumpiness, so I did another round and added Smartpaks Smart Gut Ultra. Again within 2 weeks of ending Ulcerguard treatment, weight loss would occur even with continuing the Smart Gut Ultra. I learned about the issue of rebound with these products and found Gut X. Round 3 of Ulcerguard I started Gut X on 12/7/20, about 1/2 way thru his 28 days. I wrote a review as requested by Gut X about 2 weeks after finishing the Ulcerguard and mentioned I was cautiously optimistic. Surprise! Same day they contacted me to let me know with rebound issues to continue the loading dose for 60, instead of just 30 days. As of today, I’m a week from completing his 60 days of Gut X loading dose and so far, no signs of rebound, horse is holding weight and no grumpiness. I did mention the use of the product to my vet who confirmed HA is effective with ulcers. Just an FYI, so far the Gut X has not frozen stored in a barn in VA. Just my experience, but it seems to work and is affordable.

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Where are you buying it

I get my oat flour from Amazon. I have also bought it from bulk food sections is grocery stores like Whole Foods in the past. Technically, you can also just use a blender/food processor on whole oats, but that is too much effort and mess for me! :smiley:

Bobs red mill sells it, my local “natural” grocery store has it.

ETA: the beta glucan is in the bran of the oat (according to my research and the succeed website). So I feed straight oat bran rather than oat flour/oats.

You are correct - oat bran has more (by weight) beta glucan than the actual oat grain. However, I should have been clearer in my post - steel cut whole oats contain the bran as well as the actual oat grain so as long as oat flour is made from that (which is what I buy), you are getting the beta glucan from both the grain and the bran.

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So the Gut-X arrived this week and I can certainly see that it might coat the entire GI system - it is super slimy/slippery. I got a little on my hand it was difficult to get off!! Anyway, I attempted to give it to my horse for the first time last night. He gets some alfalfa pellets wet with aloe vera juice before I work or ride him, so I just added a single dose (not the loading double dose) to the mix. It obviously has a fairly strong smell (to a horse…it didn’t smell much to my very insensitive nose!) and he made it clear that it was not appreciated. He is generally not remotely a picky eater so I was rather surprised! I had to mix some apple sauce in there before he agreed to eat it. I will try mixing it with his rice bran meal tomorrow to see if that makes it more palatable to him.

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I ordered Gut X also, started feeding it yesterday morning. Miss maresy wasn’t happy and let me know by not cleaning up her breakfast. But, she did clean up overnight. I gave one squirt this morning and again, she didn’t clean up. I’m not worried (yet) as she is pretty good about eating whatever I put in her feed, but I would still like her to eat it all at once.

It took my gelding a few days to agree that it wasn’t going to kill him, and now he eats even 2 pumps right up when it is just poured on his feed.

My stallion didn’t even appear to notice the addition of Gut-X. He’s about 5 days into the loading dose.

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I have a pony on the maintenance dose of Vitalize Alimend right now after reading the studies on these ingredients, and it made WOW!! levels of difference in her. Before VA she was so jumpy and anxious she, for example, broke the crossties because I petted her shoulder, and after VA she became cuddly, calm and relaxed with a soft eye, to the point that everyone in the barn was commenting on how big of a change it was. I saw a big improvement within 24 hours of starting it, and continued gradual behavior improvement over the next week (it’s been almost 3 weeks at this point).

The big question for me is whether it’s actually helping to heal the ulcers as the studies indicate CAN happen, or whether it’s just making her feel better. We did a round of Nexium before this that definitely made her feel better, but didn’t heal the ulcers as her symptoms came back within a month of tapering off.

My other pony that I don’t think has ulcers hasn’t really changed on VA, FWIW.

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I am trying Gutx after seeing it recommended on Luna tunes website. It’s too soon to say if it works. I love that my horse is getting HA too. Has anyone noticed improved soundness too?

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Not liquid, but has anyone tried the lecithin plus apple pectin combination? There has been some promising research… I would like to get my mare off of PPIs, but am not sure what to try.

Just thought I’d add an update. My horse has been on gastrogard and sucralfate for 28 days, and I added Gut-X about a week-10 days ago. He was rescoped today and the glandular and pyloric region look beautiful, but there are still some small, active ulcers in the non-glandular region. So he’s back on gastrogard and sucralfate for 28 days along with the Gut-X.

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Had my horse scoped on January 28th - diagnosis was Grade 2 non-glandular ulcers and moderate glandular ulcers. Did 28 days of Gastrogard (1 tube/day) and sucralfate (3x/day) plus GutX (1 pump am/pm). Horse was rescoped February 25th - diagnosis was normal stomach, all ulcers healed.

I obviously have no idea whether it was the Gastrogard, sucralfate, GutX, or some combination of the three that was so effective in healing the ulcers so quickly. But the vet did seem a little (pleasantly) surprised that the ulcers were completely gone.

Horse was on G.U.T. prior to getting scoped. I’ve discontinued giving that since it clearly didn’t prevent him from developing ulcers. I am planning to continue the GutX - it’ll be interesting to see whether the occasional colicky symptoms this horse had in the past (even on the G.U.T.) reappear or not.

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my experioence with ulcers. I had a very grumpy mare who bucked me off twice(very unusual and extremely big Fyou bucks.) i had kissing spine x rays done which were clear and started treating with gastrogard-attitude improved a little but not enough so I had her scoped after the 30 days of gastrogard. she had healing squamous ulcers, a large glandular ulcer and severe pyloric ulcers. we kept her on gstrogard for two more weeks, added misoprostol and I added loading dose of gutx when I found it online. 30 days later she only has two pyloric ulcers(70% healed) and everything else is healed. Attitude is 1000% better. she is on misoprostol for another 30 days and I will keep her on gutx for life. I have heard pyloric ulcers can take up to 6 months to heal and she had ulcers around the entire pylorus. I firmly believe misoprostol and gutx worked together to heal her so quickly.

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For those of you in boarding barn situations, how are you feeding the GutX? Just asking the feeders to do 1-2 pumps? Premaking syringes? Other brilliant ideas??

My feeds are bagged and I make up a week’s worth of feeds every Sunday. So I bought tiny tupperware containers (~1/4 cup maybe) and added the right amount Gut-X for each feed. Then I put the tupperware in the bag with the feed and the barn staff just dump in onto the feed when they put it in his bucket.

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Oh, that’s a great idea!

I saw somewhere that GutX is a little thick/sticky — do you note a good bit of residual in the cups or does most of it dump out into the feed?

It is super thick and sticky so most ends up on the feed but there is definitely a fair amount of residual left in the cups. Once you’ve used them once, I just add the dose I want and figure the residual will just stay the same and the horse is still getting what I what him to get!

I just have the guys do a pump into the feed. I make a week at a time worth of baggies of the (dry) supplements but figured the GutX would either dry out or all stick to the inside of the baggie. I don’t think a quick pump once a day is too big of a pain.