Pyloric ulcers are a bear. My guy’s took 3-4 months of treatment to heal. It sounds like your program is good. Addressing underlying discomfort may get to the root cause of the ulcers and get you the rest of the way to healing.
I don’t have much to offer other than jingles. Try to be patient. If things are continuing to improve, time may be all it takes.
Isnt this why Outlast recommends giving a serving 30-60 minutes before a “stressful event”? (I wonder if, in addition to the buffering, the pellets provide some sort of “mat” on top of the stomach acid?
Yep, if you’ve got that kind of horse who is stressed easily
Alfalfa pellets have benefits over alfalfa hay, and hay has benefits over pellets.
Alfalfa: Are Hay or Pellets Better Before Riding? – The Horse
This is a great article, thanks for sharing. Do you (or anyone else) know about how much alfalfa would be good to give before a ride? Assuming the horse has access to either fresh pasture grass or grass hay for several hours prior, and is thus not starving, would 1 lb alfalfa be a reasonable amount to feed before riding? I’ve never seen anything that specifies.
1lb sounds reasonable. 1lb alf pellets is in the 3c range give or take, depending on the size of the pellets, so you could even do 2lb. I haven’t gone to find the study so see what amounts they used.
Half a biscuits of lucerne hay before riding or floating.
How much does half a biscuit weigh? I’m feeding pellets.
Sorry no idea, I have never even seen lucerne pellets. It is just enough to give a layer at a guess, so as when the acid splashes with canter it doesn’t land on the ulcer
Biscuit = flake, Suzie is in Australia. So that greatly depends on the size of the bale and the size of the flake. Probably 2-5lb, ish.
Thanks, I know what a biscuit is but that’s why I was asking - flakes can vary so much so it’s a pretty imprecise unit of measurement 
Yep, it doesn’t help to talk in terms of flakes/biscuits - 50lb bale? 100lb? 500lb? I would expect a flake of alfalfa on a small square bale to be around 4-5lb, grass hay 2-3lb usually
I have not read through all the replies because I am just lazy and don’t have time but… my mare had hindgut ulcers. So my vet called me in a prescription for Misiprostol (sp?) To CVS and told me to get a gold RX membership. Turned out an entire treatment worth was $60 instead of 120. We did that combined with gastrogard for stomach ulcers, she was eating and acting normal again in less than 2 days. I not sure what you are using for hindgut ulcers but you may want to ask your vet about the Misiprostol and calling it into a human Pharmacy. CVS had the best prescription program cost savings ratio for me, good luck!
What was your horse’s underlying cause? I have one that does weird “tells”, but we haven’t figured it out yet. He rubs his tail and postures himself funny (hind leg either stretched all the way back behind him or way up along mid line).
Look up Dr. Benjamin Sykes on Facebook. He specializes in ulcers and has a lot of great information specifically on glandular ulcers. One fact that stuck in my brain was that horses worked more than 5 days a week have a much higher risk of glandular ulcers than horses worked less than that. Also, warmbloods are over represented for glandular ulcers. Lots of good info on his page.
Kati, there were a few things going on that were compensatory from pain over time, but peeling it all back through massage and careful monitoring showed tight muscle tissue behind the saddle (worse on one side). When I say tight, I mean ultrasound showed chronic muscle disruption with edema. Same thing in gracilis, a very important yet rarely considered muscle in the hamstring group. My horse rubbed his tail for years before I figured out it was not at all related to anything but pain in the hamstrings. Despite years of vet appointments, no one really looked at the structure of the muscles in the hamstring group and it was only a random comment from a friend of mine who is a dog vet that caused us to look in the hamstrings. Once we treated the back (we used IRAP injections and it had incredible results visible on ultrasound), the hamstrings really showed up as the problem - and it was also evident in how he was wearing his hind feet. Injected with IRAP there, and he is a new rockstar horse.
So interesting. Kudos to you for sticking with it long enough to figure it out!
Hi all,
So 6 weeks into ulcer treatment, I’m finding myself worried about inconsistent behavioral results. To remind those who didn’t read upstream, horse has continued pyloric ulcers and inflammation, stomach was clear on second scope after grade 3 ulcers there.
We’ve been holding off on cantering because right lead is problematic. Has always been but when ulcers worsened he was resistant to picking up the right lead and would dive out of it after a few strides.
We also injected hocks, SIs, and hips after he flexed positive (a two) on left hind and a one on right hind and showed some SI soreness.
Since then, his report card has been mixed. In the past few weeks he’s cantered three times under saddle: first time he resisted the lead (before injections), one ride he was great both leads and I was relieved, but then today he was a mess with trainer. Bucking and kicking out when asked to canter right. Dove out of it with his head down like something hurt. He did get the lead no issues once he cantered so maybe the injections solved at least that issue. He is dead sound at trot and left lead is fine.
So I guess my question is whether or not ulcer symptoms can wax and wane during a course of consistent treatment? He did get a rowdy lunge this morning (he had so many sillies that had to come out) and was ridden a few hours later—perhaps that splashed acid and irritated him to start off with? Trainer is telling me to be patient and that we’re still treating the core issue, and he HAS been better overall since initiation of treatment. But this right lead issue has me worried.
(Also in case anyone was wondering, it’s highly unlikely to be a rider issue—everyone on his back is very competent and aware of his not loving their right leg, so being tactful).
The difficulty is that while many training issues START as pain; some of them continue as behavioral issues after the pain is resolved.
Your horse may be resitant to the right lead because he remembers it hurting, not because it’s currently hurting. The fact that he eventually cantered on the right lead without problems after the initial resistance lends credence to the idea that he was expecting it to hurt, and then was okay after he realized it didn’t.
Time and quiet, non-traumatic repitition are the keys to changing this behavior.
And yes, I do believe ulcer symptoms can wax and wane while the horse is undergoing treatment. Try as we might, we can never control all the environmental factors and all the psychological factors that contribute to ulcers.
What was he on for the ulcers at the time of the injections? Did you inject with steroids? Steroids would often flare up my horse’s stomach until I figured that out and did Ulcergard as a preventative.
Has he cantered on the longe during this time as well? If so how is that?
Totally agree. Steroids are not great (but sometimes necessary) for horses with ulcers.
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