Quest Plus vs Equimax

[Hayburner]

Wondering if a Panacur Power Pack would ease the concern of colic? I was I
Under the assumption that it’s milder and reduces risk?

I have to use Banamine everytime we deworm as my mare gets colicky no matter what is used.

[Simkie]

@Hayburner

Wondering if a Panacur Power Pack would ease the concern of colic? I was I
Under the assumption that it’s milder and reduces risk?

Nope. When a panacur power pac is used, little ulcers develop in the gut from all the dying encysted larvae. It’s very inflammatory.

Quest doesn’t cause those ulcers, so it’s actually easier on the gut from that perspective.

[JB]

@RedHorses

the horse had been dewormed early on in the many month hunt, so we had already ruled worms out as a possible cause. It’s not surprising that the vet didn’t randomly order more deworming as that was the time of the transition to fecal based deworming from the rotational deworming method. There was a strong push to not randomly deworm as it would do more to increase resistance than to help the horse if it wasn’t necessary.

The biopsy really was a Hail Mary sort of thing. We weren’t expecting anything and even with the results of nothing abnormal, but there are a bunch of encysted strongyles the vet wasn’t convinced that they were the. cause. Given nothing else to go on we tried deworming for encysted strongyles and got results.

I guess what we’re getting at is that it seems - especially now - that parasites weren’t truly ruled out, as if moxidectin had been used, the EL would have been a non-issue, and would have cleared up this issue without the invasive biopsy. At least that’s what I was trying to get and, and which is now getting more details around it.

I for one would have jumped on Quest or Quest Plus long before doing a biopsy. I’m glad you got resolution finally

@RedHorses

What I found interesting is that this horse was consistently a high shedder for a few years after this, but has become a consistently low shedder in the past few years.

Not entirely weird. If he was infected for long enough to trigger the issues you were apparently having, it may have taxed his immunity for a while - so high shedder for a bit.

@Janet

My understnding is that the concern abou tQuest Plus is that SOME horses have a strong allergic reaction to the substance that makes it “gold”.

There’s no “gold” here. The Plus is praziquantel, the same that’s in Zimecterin Gold, and Equimax (and the Canadian equivalents of all those)

The issue with Zimecterin Gold is carrier ingredients, not the active ivermectin and prazi

@Equkelly

For quest plus, from what my vet tech friend explained awhile ago is that most dewormers are tested to see what their “overdose range” is. Most of them you’d have to give them like 15-20x the recommended dose before you’d start seeing big problems. However, Quest plus has a lower threshold around 5-6x before you start to have problems so that’s why foals can have issues because they’re little and it’s just easier for someone to go way over the recommended dose.

Yes, and even moxidectin is not so low a safety margin that you couldn’t give 2x ( NOT recommending that!). Studies were done and the horses received a multiple X dose very frequently for many months without issues. You just don’t go randomly doing that though

[Janet]

@Posting_Trot

I think it’s Zimectrin Gold to which a number of horses have had bad reactions. That dewormer is an ivermectin-praziquantal combo.

Oops. Sorry

[RedHorses]

@JB

I for one would have jumped on Quest or Quest Plus long before doing a biopsy.

I deleted my response
Sorry, that wasn’t necessary even if it was true. I’m at the last thread of patience after all the Christmas behaviour at work these last couple of weeks. Merry Christmas, JB.

[JB]

@RedHorses my apologies if you took my comments as being judgmental against you. That wasn’t my intention It was merely intended as a last comment in general, so that anyone else reading wouldn’t think that a biopsy looking for ELs is really a good thing to do.

Your whole situation - guided by your vet, not you - was just a little odd in that parasites shouldn’t have been ruled out as an issue since clearly ELs weren’t targeted (properly). A “Hail Mary” of Quest Plus would have been a much better choice than an intestinal biopsy, in order to truly definitively rule out parasite issues.

I’m just sorry you had to pay for, and your horse had to go through that biopsy, when $15 for QP could have been done first. I hope that makes sense.

[RedHorses]

We had ruled out parasites months before the biopsy. We weren’t looking for encysted larvae - we didn’t know what we might find. Anyone thinking worms would try deworming before a biopsy - I don’t know why you think otherwise.

[JB]

I know you said you had ruled out parasites. I know you said you weren’t looking for parasites.

My point is (and I realize I’m probably beating a dead horse by now) that if you found EL and then used Quest and your issues were resolved, then clearly EL were not taken care of (well enough) before.

I don’t know what products you used. Is it possible you really had taken care of EL before the biopsy? I guess, you haven’t given those details. But if you had, and things were still a problem, then EL weren’t the issue, and resolution of his problems after using Quest after the finding of EL during the biopsy, was just a correlation to deworming again, not that deworming fixed him (or it would have resolved his issues the first time)

Lots of people using a Power Pack, for example, and assume it will take care of all the EL. Not only is there a lot of resistance to that now, but a PP has never been as effective as moxidectin is. If you used a PP and therefore “ruled out” EL as a potential problem, then you have a big resistance issue.

That’s all. I don’t know if I’ve made my questions and comments more clear, or made you more mad (which was never my intention), but I think I’ve said things enough ways I feel it’s clear what I was getting at, which was SOLEY about timing and efficacy issues.

[jlm0305]

@JB

but a PP has never been as effective as moxidectin is

That’s not true, the five day fenbendazole regimen used to be far more effective than moxidectin against EL. Now that benzimidazole resistance is so widespread, moxidectin is more effect against EL, but still not amazing. A single treatment certainly isn’t going to knock out all of the EL, regardless of drug. See: https://twitter.com/MartinKNielsen/status/1336774523459235840

And @RedHorses, not trying to upset you or anything! It’s just very interesting to me, since parasites are my thing (I’m getting a PhD studying them, hah).

[RedHorses]

That’s interesting. At one point the clinic asked me if I’d mixed up the samples from my two horses because the younger had fewer eggs (very low) than the older did (he was the low end of moderate). Up to that point the older was always a very low shedder and the younger moderate to high. I might start checking the older horse a bit more often now even though the last few have been very low again. He’s got PPID as well, which I understand can reduce the horse’s resistance to worms.

I use Quest at minimum once a year for the younger horse (usually Plus to get tapeworms at the same time) and I can tell how bad the encysted load was by how he reacts to it during the week following. My older horse doesn’t show anything.

[JB]

@jlm0305

That’s not true, the five day fenbendazole regimen used to be far more effective than moxidectin against EL.

Thanks! I’ve seen most of that info before, but it’s interesting to look at the trend of increasing efficacy of moxidectin over the study years - it makes me wonder how the earlier studies were gauging efficacy. For example, how could Mox go from not killing any EL3, to killing almost 74%?

But fair point. We do know that PP used to be very effective. It just hasn’t been nearly that in a good while now