Hi! I ordered some abler omeprazole granules. I want to use for prevention not treatment we’ve already done the treatment with gastrogard. The instructions say 2 packets for prevention and 4 packets for treatment. Why isn’t it 1 packet for prevention which would be equivalent to 1/4 tube gastrogard?
I have abler in larger packets so I give it per scoop. We use it for prevention on a large (probably 1200lb) mare and she gets 2 scoops daily.
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My guess is Abler is probably accounting for some lost efficacy or med concentration. Yes, both products theoretically provide the same medication and treat the same condition. The contents of one packet of a compounded product like Abler may not be as reliable or consistent as that quarter tube of a regulated prescription product like GG.
I’ve used both. Abler worked well for my ulcer prone guy until I had to give up on their sketchy shipping after a third order was seized by customs.
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Oh wow. That’s wild. I was looking at ordering from them.
Yeah, I can’t really blame Customs and Border Protection for being skeptical of “horse medication” shipping from Singapore. I ended up switching my horse to Nexium for fear of ending up on some sort of watchlist.
I think there are a couple of other threads about shipping and delivery issues if you put Abler in the search. Decent product, just not worth the hassle IMO.
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Are you looking for long-term prevention, or just as-needed, like for travel and anything else stressful?
I ask because there’s some thought that full time use of omeprazole actually starts being digested by the horse. It’s like psyllium, we used to think it would do it’s sand clear job full time if you used a smaller dose full time (not that everyone did, but some did), and now with more research it’s known that after 2-3 weeks, the horse actually starts digesting it, which has actually turned out to be beneficial to some fecal water syndrome horses
As to your direct question - how much does your horse weigh? I just put in a 1200lb weight and it comes to 3 satchets for treatment and 1 for prevention, so you must have a heavier horse. It’s not exact, as each satchet contains 700mg of omeprazole. Treatment is 4mg/kg, which is 2182mg for a 1200lb horse. That’s where the 3 satchets comes in - 3 x 700
Prevention is 1mg/kg, so 545mg for a 1250lb horse, or 1 satchet
4 packets and 2 packets would be for a quite large horse
Not to hijack, but are there any papers to this effect? I know it’s pricey so if it’s not doing what it should be, would love to tell my client we can stop giving it.
let me see if I can find where I recently read about this. My struggle will be that they didn’t use the word “digest” but used another combination of words to mean the same thing
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Hmm my horse is 1150 lbs. i thought i read on their website 2packets for prevention. I’ll have to double check. I’m using to treat a few months after treating with gastrogard. And then at shows.
What dose are you using for nexium? Is it for prevention like at shows?
That’s from the abler website
That’s 3 satchets for treatment, 1 for prevention. You have to put the horse’s weight into the weight calculator
That section of their website is incorrect, and doesn’t make sense, as it has a prevention dose as 1/2 of a treatment dose, which isn’t correct either.
Use the calculator, that’s what makes sense given that each satchet contains 700mg of omeprezole
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Thank you!
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Just chiming in to add that I tried using them years ago. The shipping was ridiculous. IIRC, they mailed the packages to another point, and that point mailed the packages into the country. Clearly, it’s illegal, and they are trying to circumvent customs. I had a heated discussion with the “owner”. No question that their product has some value, but what a pain in the ass. YMMV
I heard that they have a US distributor now and that their shipping is much improved.
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Here’s the study I had seen the abstract for, summarized for the layperson
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Pharmacokinetics-and-tolerability-of-a-new-of-in-Salvo-Busechian/1bbf09542b72a56e4587ae457ddc5cd64e650b6f
I originally saw it here
" Potential reasons for decreased efficacy over time include reduced owner compliance and upregulation of omeprazole breakdown . In horses given 4 mg/kg daily, the bioavailability (measured as total circulating amount) decreased by 50% after 29 days. [12]"
and the study referenced is the above
I had to get a PhD friend with access to the paywall to find the whole article to see what it was really about. The study was funded by a pharmaceutical company in Italy. 9/10 authors are from a Vet School in Italy, the 10th is from the company.
I don’t know how ethical it is to publicly post info from a study behind the paywall so I won’t unless someone says it’s really ok for this purpose (and it’s not the WHOLE study), but here’s what my friend said - she’s a PhD biologist who’s active in research, so I trust that she’s interpreted it all correctly 
“The mechanism isn’t fully understood but it looks like absorption increases early on (possibly due to the higher stomach pH reducing degradation of the drug) but serum concentrations decrease after 2 weeks due to potential metabolism of the drug.”
It has something to do with (taking parts from her copy of the paper) CYP450, CYPC19, and CYP34A isoforms, the latter 2 being “main cytochromes involved in omeprazole metabolism”
I don’t know the “new formulation” of the omeprazole (waiting to hear from my friend if that’s listed in the paper)
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I ordered some of the granules within the past year and had no problems or anything weird with the shipping. I remember years ago it was a bit different and sort of odd, especially with the payment method. So I guess things have changed.
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This is all super helpful, thank you!
Is the abler a different formulation of omeprazole than gastrogard is, and that’s why it’s mostly effective in the first 2 weeks (compared to gastrogard)? I know that vets prescribe gastrogard for multiple weeks even into months for some horses, so does this change how we think about that as well, or am I comparing apples and oranges?
They’re different in that Abprazole is enteric-coated granules, whole UG/GG is buffered omeprazole. Why/how/if that makes a difference I don’t have any clue
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