My take on that is the vets just want you to continue to buy the more expensive Surpass from them and the drug companies who back the studies.
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If he had frequent abscesses someone might have prescribed it.
It was like the catch all script for horses with foot issues for a period of time.
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Thankfully, it worked for my last suspected one.
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I jinxed myself with this thread! Two nights ago I fell asleep on the couch and didnāt realize my foot had fallen asleep. Stood up and immediately my ankle collapsed and I BADLY sprained my ankle.
Since it has been 25 years since I sprained something, I googled current sprain protocol. Still RICEā¦. And Voltaren ;).
I sent the hub out to barn since I could barely walk lol.
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Iāve got disk problems in my back. We had one horse that we used robaxin on because he would get a sore back from time to time. I was in the human pharmacy one time and saw a jar on the shelf. It was the same jar I had in the barn. Methocarbamol. It had the same directions as the jar in the barn. 1 pill per hundred pounds. So I got 2 and the horse got 12.
I stopped using the stuff from the human pharmacy and shared with the horses instead.
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keep in mind that when researching drugs, they use animal models of disease. Often drugs get to the veterinary market ahead or at the same times as the human. Volteren is a perfect example of a drug that was developed by a maker ( Glaxo Smith Klein (Beecham) ) that has a long history of developing drugs that are found in both vet and human medicine
Often the only difference between drugs like SMZ TMP is the label. Same maker same id marks, quite often vastly different prices to the pharmacy / business buying it.
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Can you get it OTC?
Not that I know of. We had it in the barn for one of the horses and got it from the vet. The horse passed long ago. My back doc was appalled at the idea of self medication. I told him all horse people self medicate. So he gave me a prescription for baclofen instead.
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My horse takes 32 zyrtec per day for his allergies. Thank God Costco carries a generic form.
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And now to take this somewhat off course. I had a bone density scan last year. My hips and spine have above average density for a woman my age but my femeral neck (thatās what breaks when you break your hip) was almost at osteoporosis. (How did my body decide to decalcify just one section???) Of course the doctor said take calcium and do weight bearing exercise. I was already doing those. So I asked, "What about shock wave therapy? The look on her face made me think I had suddenly grown a second head. So, I found a chiropractor who does shockwave therapy. I donāt know if it is helping with bone density yet but I do know that my nagging hip pain is gone. I am having the left hip treated and will be going for another density scan in 6 months. And, as I told the chiro, āIf the left hip has improved, I will have the right hip treated and he gets to write a paper.ā Of course, without owning a horse I would never have even known about this therpay.
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Yesā¦I had some shockwave done on my left hip tendons. I mean they have been using it on horses at least 15 year?
Have you ever read Zoobiquity? https://www.amazon.com/Zoobiquity-Astonishing-Connection-Between-Animal/dp/0307477436
Itās a great book on the intersections of human-animal and non-human animal (deliberate, albeit confusing) medicine. We just change some words and dosing.
My horse has secondary hypothyroidism. Heās been on levothyroxine for some time.
When I went into the endocrinologist with my whack thyroid labs, I met with a (competent, well-regarded) doctor who appeared to have no bedside manner whatsoever. I found myself wondering why I had been sent to see this brusque, monosyllabic grouch. He began to describe levothyroxine and what it would do for my thyroid hormones, and I held up my hand and said āIām familiar with the medication, my horse has been on it for years.ā
All of a sudden his face lit up and he became a completely different person. Turns out his neighbors have horses, and although he doesnāt ride himself, he enjoys starting his day by watching his neighborsā horses out his kitchen window. We had a 10-minute conversation about horses before I walked out with my lab and imaging orders and an RX for my own bottle of Thyro-L.
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That reminds me of the gynecololgist I saw last year. He was fairly abrupt, which didnāt bother me. But I noticed he was wearing very worn western boots. I asked if he had horses, as those boots looked like they worked around livestock for a living. He said no, alpacas. I told him about my former next door neighbor who had 25 alpacas, which my last horse adopted as his herd when he became an only child. So then the doctor started bringing out the dad jokes, and we had a lot of fun trading groaners. Each examining room in his office had a soothing sound generator. The one in the room I was in was set to ocean sounds, which I like but make me have to pee. So he set it to trains, since I love trains. He made a tense situation so much easier once he broke out of his shell.
He ended up doing a D&C on me a couple of weeks later, and I started getting a little nervous as I was wheeled into the OR. He walked in and immediately told me a bad joke, so I went under anesthesia laughing.
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