Before you say anything, yes, my horse has been scoped and I have been slowly going broke as we are on month 4 of medication for very severe ulcers. But from my understanding, omeprazole inhibits the production of stomach acid, thus allowing the body to heal itself, but does not actually heal the ulcers. I am going to speak to my vet about adding sucralfate to help as well. But my horse’s body worker suggested looking into a supplement to help the healing process along and help when he eventually begins the weaning process off of the drugs. There are soooo many options on the market and I’m curious if any of them actually do anything? I tend to avoid supplements because I almost never find they do what they are advertised to do but I’m open to trying anything that will help my poor boy.
I’m so sorry to hear that!
I am honestly not sure that any supplement really helps.
My horse was an anxious mess as a 3-4+ year old. Scoping showed very minor ulcers only caught on withdrawal, but we treated him anyway with omeprazole. The vet who scoped him thought he’d have raging ulcers based on his behavior. I have since helped neutralize his stomach acid during stressful times with feeding calcium rich alfalfa flakes. He was a super hot horse and alfalfa didn’t make him any hotter. I used regular or compressed bales since I know the cubes are made of mostly stems and the leafs are most nutritious. Most importantly, it delivered cations ( positive pH) to his anxious stomach (negative pH in terms of the standard of 7.0 or so). For a while, I gave him calcium and magnesium human pills ground up in his feed. A lot of them!
I cant say if this helped, but in his earlier years traveling, he wasn’t as much of a mess an never showed signs of ulcers.
I get how unpleasant this is. Consider adding cations to his diet, and the easiest way is alfalfa. 1 flake am and pm. Good quality alfalfa.
Having gone through so much of this myself, let me suggest that while omeprazole does decrease stomach acid, and can contribute to ulcer healing, they won’t heal unless your horse’s stomach health improves.
Please consider having the vet perform another gastroscopy, and checking stomach fluid for pH and pull a sample to send out for testing for bacteria. I battled ulcers for 3 YEARS+ before finally getting an internist that knew what to do. I spent more than $14k on Ulcerguard. It was not a solution … merely a band-aid on a problem that was never discovered or resolved.
Supplements won’t help anything if you’re dealing with bacterial or pH problems - again, more band-aids that mask the real problem.
Don’t be surprised, btw, if your local general vet says it’s all hogwash. If you PM me with your location, I may be able to recommend an internist.
I live in North Dakota so finding a vet that has a scope period was a challenge. When he was scoped after the first 2 months of treatment it showed partial healing but the ulcers were just really really severe. If it is a bacterial issue, do you have to give antibiotics or something?
Yes – depending on the bacteria, you would use an antibiotic that is effective. We did 14 days of enrofloxacin which was specific for the overgrowth of bacteria in his stomach, but still wasn’t resolved so did another 14 days. Since then, no ulcers!
Hi! what tests did they run on the stomach acid? I NEED to get the vet clinic to do this for my horse. thanks in advance
They have to pull a fluid sample during gastroscopy; test on the spot with a pH strip, send a sample off for bacterial analysis.
Great thanks!
Do you know what bacteria they were testing for or where the sample was sent? I’m trying to find a test online through UC Davis or Cornell that I can send to my vet - anything would be helpful here. Thanks
Antech - 800-872-1001
The first sample showed massive overgrowths of pseudomonas and serratia marescens … on treatment, his stomach changed dramatically and the next 3 samples (about a month apart) showed big changes on what was in there.
Thank you, what was the treatment? Assuming antibiotics?
He was on a massive dose of steroids (28 tabs of prednisolone daily for months before we could taper), and Enrofloxacin. The lab indicated that was the most effect antibiotic for his particular case. I think he was on it for 3 months? Maybe 2.
We’re there any side affects from the treatment? Did your horse have glandular/squamous ulcers in addition to this?
He was a mess prior to treatment - the lining of his stomach was yellowed and wrinkled, and there were some areas of ulcers but I’ll have to go back and look at vet report. No, there were zero side effects. He was very easy to treat as he eats pills in his timothy pellets with no issue. In the course of treatment, both his stomach fluid pH and bacteria types were remarkably different after 1 month. We continued treatment for the next emerging bacteria for an additional month, and by month 3 he was in good shape in his stomach without ulcers, yellow patches or wrinkling. We were literally at death’s door when we started and it took some months of massive pred doses before I felt comfortable stepping down the dose. He did continue to colic for the first month which was awful and terrifying but we knew we were on the right path as it was substantially fewer instances than before. By month 2 I could get him down to 20 tabs. In full disclosure it took me 9 months to completely wean him off as I was freaked all the way out. But there were no side effects.
