The vet I talked to wasn’t basing his recommendation on the 4 pony experience. He was basing it on the science behind prostaglandin production. I didn’t get the impression that they considered it any huge scientific discovery - more like common sense based on what they know about acid and ulcers.
[QUOTE=El Tovar;2915366]
Personally I would NOT feed corn oil…I would heal the gut using kamanimalservices.com as I have done on 8 boarded horses in the last 2 years, with no recurrences.[/QUOTE]
Unfortunatly, that’s not an option for me. Some of its ingredients are illegal under USEF rules.
Can someone provide the studies that show ulcer-eze does the same thing as ulcergard.
What IS ulcer-eze? There is a product with the same name that my dentist uses for canker sores.
Found it…it’s “Ulser-Eze” made by Saratoga. Yet another plain old antacid. Can’t find the ingredient list but it’s an “antacid/antigas” product. Probably same thing as good old Gaviscon. You won’t find any studies on it…in spite of what the person at the tack store said. :lol:
You can buy ulcer-eze, but you can’t find any studies that prove it works. It’s sold under Saratoga products, but I find no studies:confused:
I’ve heard of it and it’s for sale at the co op.
It’s also about $50/gallon. Yikes! That’s crazy.
ditch the tractguard.
Omeptazole for treatment and tagement for after treatment. those are what will help.
Safechoice has a much higher NCS then once thought which is not great for ulcers.
I ahve not had time to read thru the replies, but it has been proven that part to all of the horses hay diet should be alfalfa to prevent ulcers. THis has been studeied and apparently alfalfa has something that prevents ulcers from forming (I think it may be the high clacium content, but just my opinion).
[QUOTE=purplnurpl;2921468]
ditch the tractguard.
Omeptazole for treatment and tagement for after treatment. those are what will help.
Safechoice has a much higher NCS then once thought which is not great for ulcers.[/QUOTE]
purplnpurl, how much tagement, and just once a day?
Has anyone switched to a feed like Buckeye Safe and Easy? Seems like a good feed for ulcer prone horses, but the fat content is low and not sure it would work for a hard keeper?
Just checking b/c I am treating with GG right now as I have an OTTB that I have been giving daily doses of banamine or bute due to injuries the last 3 weeks!
My tagement was RX’d by vet. He gave me doses to use for my horses current problem.
So I can’t help with dosage.
Probably when I get to the point where I am using some sort of tummy med everyday I’ll call again for those dosages.
sorry. : (
Dosages?
Sarapony, you said that you give 75 mg ranitidine when you give it once a day. What is the dose you use when you give it twice a day in the winter?
Seal, what is the dose of tagamet you use for your horse?
Horsegirl, how about an update? How’s your horse doing?
I keep coming back to this thread because my horse is going through the same thing. I treated him for ulcers late summer into fall. He got 1 tube of Ulcergard daily for 6 weeks, then half a tube for 4 weeks. Since then, he’s been on U-Gard pellets twice a day with his grain. Well, I’m pretty sure the ulcers are back so I did a 2-week trial with 1/4 tube Ulcergard per day. At the end of the 2 weeks I had a wonderful horse. I backed off the dose to every other day, then stopped altogether. After 10 days of no Ulcergard, horse has become very cranky and difficult. So, he’s back on the Ulcergard. I plan to keep him on the 1/4 tube for a while, but I’m also looking for maintenance after the Ulcergard is done. He’s now getting hay 24/7, but I don’t plan to go back to the U-Gard pellets. I’m looking at either tagamet or ranitidine. That’s why I’m so interested in the doses.
Seal, I’m very impressed that your horse has nearly stopped cribbing. My horse used to be a very light cribber, but now he’s a serious cribber. After Ulcergard, he cribbed less, but not back to the point where he was a few years ago. Maybe that will come with longer term care. Are there any alfalfa treats besides the cubes?
It seems that maintenance needs vary a lot from horse to horse, so you just have to figure out what is going to work for your particular horse. Thanks everybody for sharing your experiences. It’s not “scientific”, but we don’t have much scientific literature to guide us here (except 1/4 tube Ulcergard every day).
Does anyone use magnesium to help with ulcers? If yes, which supplement do you use?
magnesium
The U-Gard pellets contain 3.5% magnesium, so at the recommended dose (2 scoops/day or 56 grams), that equals about 2 grams/day. According to Eleanor Kellon’s book on equine supplements, a horse used as a hunter probably requires about 10 grams per day. So, 2 grams would be 20% of the horse’s requirement. My new NRC is at work, so I couldn’t check the latest numbers available. It’s really hard to know if magnesium supplementation would work because you would have to know what’s delivered in the feed and what the balance with other minerals is. In any event, the U-Gard pellets did not seem to help my horse.
my 20 year old tb(different horse than daughters show horse!!!) has been scoped for ulcers treated, and for preventitive, we make sure he always has hay, and gets powdered milk of mag in his feed daily. He has been fine, except when he eats treats he cribs, non-stop. Have noticed the cribbing has become worse in the past month, and after reading this thread, realized he no longer gets oil in his feed. I think it was rice bran oil??? new manager took over, and old just put the oil in everyones feed. Could the fact that hes not getting this oil be causing the ulcers to act up and why hes cribbing more (more like windsucking) but i guess its the same??
[QUOTE=Hollywood;2921638]
purplnpurl, how much tagement, and just once a day?[/QUOTE]
While ranitidine (Tagamet) has never been approved for use in horses or shown to be effective, the recommendation is 2-3X/day. It is a short acting drug (12 hours or less) even in humans.
Here’s part of one comprehensive article. You can Google more.
Ranitidine is not antiandrogenic. Clinical and research experiences have demonstrated that a minimum dosage of 4.4 mg/kg of both cimetidine and ranitidine must be given. Cimetidine should be given 4-6 times daily and ranitidine 2-3 times daily to be effective. It has even been recommended to give cimetidine at 8.8 mg/kg. Medications should be given for 10-21 days. Lower dosages, from 1.1 to 2.2 mg/kg, have been effective in alleviating clinical signs of gastric ulcers, but endoscopic examination has revealed that significant ulceration was present.
I am surprised no one on here has mentioned papaya. OP, that really may be your solution. There is a papaya juice specifically marketed for this purpose (I believe a COTH member’s sister owns or started the company that sells it??). I used this for my guy very successfully. He has a pretty taxing show schedule and is extremely ulcer-prone and it worked. I have him on Gastro-Guard now, simply because he is not loving the hay he currently gets and also because my relatively new barn prefers using GG but the papaya worked wonders for me. If you do a search, I believe it has been discussed on here and there was a link to the website where it’s sold. If you can’t find it and are interested, let me know and I’m sure I can dig up the info. It really is an inexpensive, remarkably effective, maintenance solution.
What about sucralfate? Opinions?
When my then 6 month old colt had ulcers I found this webpage and incorporated some of her ideas into his rehab diet including 20cc of Maalox prior to each meal for three weeks. http://www.lunatunesfreestyles.com/ulcers.htm
He was treated w/ Gastrogard. Since November to address the stomach acid he receives a flake of alfalfa hay each evening with his brome hay. I could only find one 1000# bale of alfalfa hay which is why he isn’t getting it twice a day- I need this to last. He is on Foxden Equines “Tract Gard”. He gets beet pulp w/ a small amount of whole oats twice a day.
The vet & I think my guy got his ulcer during weaning so we don’t anticipate this being an ongoing problem. In time I’ll remove the “TractGard” but I like the idea of him receiving prebiotics & extra salt during the winter. I plan to find first cutting alfalfa this year and keep that as a regular part of his diet.
Ranitidine is Zantac. Cimetidine is Tagamet.
