I have a rescue gelding who has both foundered and had a stroke, I am looking for something that works for pain from laminitis, primarily. Any thoughts or experiences?
My pony was on a combo of gabapentin, tramadol, and ace plus banamine when he foundered from steroids after surgery. It worked well enough he would be willing to walk around his stall a bit in cloud boots.
I was told gabapentin works better combined with another pain relief than by itself.
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I’ve found gabapentin very effective for nervey type pain in my horses. I don’t find it needs to be paired with other pain meds in that case.
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I’m not a vet and 100% not an expert on meds, just going by what my vet said when treating pony’s laminitis. Thankfully he hasn’t needed it again.
So you used it on him?
He was on a combo of drugs listed above for steroid induced laminitis.
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It worked well for my coffin bone infection (and subsequent debridement surgery) horse when we couldn’t get anything else to work (bute, bamamine worked but couldn’t use it long enough, Equioxx did nothing at the time). We used it for several months in her grain with success. I’d use it again without hesitation.
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Gabapentin worked really well when my poor mini was laid out flat foundered. That was a few years ago and we were on the verge of euthanasia, but the gabapentin really helped her pull through. Now she is stable and hasn’t foundered for a few years. I give her previcox daily as a preventative so she can have a few hours on grass every day. That works really well. But I have found bute to be useless for laminitis.
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We used it on an older warmblood mare who had poor hind leg conformation and in her final months was experiencing significant hind suspensory issues. It helped to manage her pain and discomfort very well and really kept her stress levels down until the decision was made by owner that it was time to help her cross the rainbow bridge. I would absolutely use again in the future. I do know you need to taper when coming off though carefully. In this particular case it was fairly evident the mare would not be making a recovery but it worked well to manage her comfort levels till the end so there was no taper process.
We also use it on our elderly dog- works great for him too.
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How much gabapentin and /or tramadol did you end up using for your horses. There seems to be a bit of a sliding scale. TIA
I have 2 horses currently on gabapentin. The first horse reared and fell over backwards and has neuro issues. NC State saw him and recommended the gabapentin. He’s been on it since 2007 and gets 10 capsules once a day - I just throw it in his feed and he eats it. It made a huge difference. Second horse is an oldster that managed to get a capped hock. All kinds of treatments, cold hosing, poultice wraps, laser therapy, magnawave therapy, Equioxx. He was so bad I wouldn’t go in the stall with him because I thought he would fall over on me. I was close to euthing him. Then the vet said try gabapentin - he gets 40 tabs a day - 20 in the morning, 20 at night, just dumped in his feed and he eats it up. Vet said she did research and for pain (versus neuro issues) the higher dosage works better. And it’s really not that pricey.
Gabapentin comes in several strengths. 20 pills could be anywhere from 2000mg to 16000mg.
The dose I’ve used most recently is 5mg/kg q12h.
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How many MG are your capsules?
400mg
How about Tramadol dosage for anyone who has used it for a horse? Thanks!
This study found 10mg/kg q12h effective:
This study did have one colic at 10 mg/kg:
It was prescribed to a horse of mine which had had laminitis, and was on Bute (Previcox didn’t work for him), in the hope that the Bute could be reduced.
It didn’t do a thing for him, and he hated it (this was a horse who normally would have eaten anything), and flavoring was added to his meals to try to hide the taste. After two months with zero results, I quit trying, as it was an expensive drug that didn’t work, and apparently tasted horrible.
Upon finding this research, I wasn’t surprised that it was ineffective for him:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0737080615001409
Maybe it works for some horses. For mine, I next tried feeding him KER EO3 oil, mainly because I myself take Omega 3s and they help me. One of my vets takes them with good results, too, and he thought it was worth a shot when I mentioned doing this. My horse responded well to the fish oil, and was able to come totally off Bute (or anything else) within a couple of weeks, never to need it again.
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I use Gabapentin on my TB when he needs pain relief. He went through Osphos-induced kidney failure many years ago, and we don’t want to risk his kidneys to typical NSAIDs. I don’t find that it works miracles, but did seem to provide him some relief during a cellulitis flare-up recently.
I had started him on it after an injury a while back (at the suggestion of my former vet), and FWIW, my current vet said that protocol recently changed, and she had me go from 4 pills twice a day to 24 pills twice a day (sorry, I’m not home and can’t look to see what strength my Gabapentin is, so I know that’s not terribly descriptive). But that’s just to say that if you go the Gabapentin route, make sure you’re talking to a vet who’s aware that the guidance has been upped in recent years.
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The veterinarian prescribed eight 400mg pills twice daily for my 900# horse. 16 total per day x 400mg = 6400mg/day for 900# horse. A bottle of 500 lasted a month.
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IIRC 12 pills (maybe 15?) twice a day?
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