Thanks for the info and also thank you Simke too.
i will talk to my vet about only doing the core named here.
Good advice already. I also have one that gets dex before vaccines after he had a hives reaction.
My vet also doesn’t give or recommend those all in one vaccines for any horse because of high incidence of reaction, among other issues.
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Mine gets bad, systemic reactions to vaccines (not brand-specific) as well. Lying down flat acting distressed, tremors, sweating, breathing rapidly, full-body hives, and ultimately developed laminitis in the worst case.
I was very skeptical about advice to use individual vaccines and space them out, as it does seem that the reaction may be to substances in the prepared vaccine rather to the individual antigens, and my instinct was to want to introduce vaccine material (adjuvant, stabilizers, etc.) into the horse’s system as few times as possible. However, a really good vet convinced me to try individual vaccines spaced farther apart and it helped. Combined with the right pre-treatment plan I finally feel like I can give my horse some protection from the deadly diseases in my area without the vaccination carrying even higher risk of mortality.
On my vet’s recommendation I start administering antihistamines 24 hours before vaccination and continuing 2x/day for 2 days after vaccination. My horse gets a dose of banamine several hours before the vet arrives, and iv banamine from the vet at the time of vaccine administration. We don’t treat with steroids (dex) due to history of vaccine-induced laminitis, but I keep it in my first aid kit just in case. I space the vaccines out 2-3 months apart, always vaccinate on days when the vet has other business at the barn and will be around for at least an hour after administering the vaccination, and typically spend the rest of the day at the barn monitoring for reactions. After one rabies vaccination using this protocol we had a mild colic develop hours after administration, but nothing compared to what we’ve been through in the past. I’m amazed that it is possible to vaccinate a horse this reactive without killing her, but after a few years of success I’m a believer in the spaced out and pre-treated vaccination protocol.
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Am I special because I 2 of the 3 I currently own are reactive?
Last year was the first year the old pony became reactive. He had a terrible colic episode that resolved, but was pretty scary. The decision going forward has been to reduce is overall vaccinations (ATM I can’t remember which ones we dropped, but he still gets his core ones.) and we give a couple of vaccines one week and then a couple of vaccines the next week. So far this seems to be working.
My younger OTTB develops severe injection site reactions. The first time he was vaccinated in my care he became SO sore that he couldn’t bend at the pole or drop his head/neck lower than level. It took about a week for the reaction to completely resolve. The next time we vaccinated the vet did an IV injection of banamine and then gave the vaccines. He had slight swelling and tenderness at the injection site, but his neck had full range of motion. The swelling went away after a couple of days. This time I gave him an oral dose of banamine 40 minutes prior to the vet doing the vaccines. The next day he was stiff and had one area of major swelling and at another injection site he had a smaller swelling. The reaction took a week to go away even with being treated with banamine. The vet feels like the best course forward is to do an iv dose of banamine each time he is vaccinated. He doesn’t feel that spreading the doses out would be helpful. He feels like he would get the same type of reaction 2 different times.
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Someone was telling me how badly their horse reacts to vaccines. They had to keep the vet on hand for an hour afterwards and administer a bunch of drugs and this is something she does twice yearly!
You can give benadryl before vaccinating, you can use banamine (keep in mind it is a painkiller). Your horse could colic without you being aware of it because he’s high on banamine.
You can try a different vaccine site- I’ve been vaccinating mine in the pectoral muscles- you get some swelling, but it seems to dissipate. Sometimes you get a little bag of fluid, but that goes away with time. One of mine had massive hot swelling about days 4-6 after vaccination. I thought it might be an abscess but it was just swelling and it went down all by itself.
If i have a horse that doesn’t react then I inject the neck. If i know they are likely to have swelling or problems, then i inject the pectoral muscles instead. This has worked for me. But I’ve never had a colic from vaccination.
Allergic reactions tend to get worse on repeated exposures. If i was not certain i could prevent the reaction, I would consider not vaccinating.
I have one horse that does the best on the 3 in1 vaccine by Merck (former encevac T, now prestige 3). Other vaccines cause problems for her- swollen neck and loss of appetite because her neck hurts).
Another horse reacts badly to Prestige 3 and gets Equi-Jec WNV + EWT, instead. Which is funny because I thought she would do better with prestige 3.
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With the ones that I had that were reactive, I spaced out the vaccines and gave banamine. And Fort Dodge was definitely the worst!
For rabies I have been told that there is anecdotal, as opposed to peer reviewed, evidence that it’s good for three years and I know of one vet that recommends that her clients only do it every three years. But we are in California. I talked to the barn vet about doing my horse that way and she wasn’t comfortable doing it (despite the fact that many horses at the barn aren’t even vaccinated for rabies, but I digress…). Anyhow, the dang titer was $300 and she went ahead and did it despite instructions to contact me first if the cost of the titer was more than the vaccine. Again, I digress. So you might talk to your vet about administering the rabies every three years. I think the work was done at UC Davis. And definitely get an estimate for the cost of the titers.
BTW, the the titer was fine and it was done a bit over a year after the previous vaccination.
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Had this issue years ago, this solved. For each vaccine: 2 tbsp. sodium absorbate (form of vitamin C) a day for 3 days in feed. Vaccinate on 3rd day. Natural Horse Care by Pat Coleby.
What is the putative mechanism for this effect?
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Somehow I am not tempted to try the sodium absorbate [sic] option. Or to read Natural Horse Care by Pat Coleby.
:lol::no:
I care more about my horse being alive than natural!
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I never give the six in one but split the core vaccines.
Had a similar reaction to rabies from my horse, about 10 years ago. Not colic, but just sick - could not move her neck and 0 energy. Just skipped the rabies shot. I took the risk that my horse did not have a high probability of a bite or __ from the animals who carry this.
But she has such a fount of knowledge!
"Founder
This is like laminitis and is caused by an excess of phosphates without the balancing magnesium in the diet, which has made the horse acutely magnesium deficient. In chronic cases the horse will show large areas of hardening round the neck, on top of the tail, and in serious cases, down the shoulder (sometimes called shoulder founder)."
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Wow wish I knew I could of treated every case of laminitis I’ve ever seen with a heap ton of magnesium! 
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