Was your experience with Osphos good or bad?

[DressurLeben]

My horse has been diagnosed with a legion of his front DDFT near the navicular bone. We’ve treated it with an injection of the navicular bursa. Now I’ve got 3 vets recommending Osphos to treat any possible bone damage that the MRI didn’t detect.

I’ve read up on Osphos, but I’ve got some concerns.
FDA Website here
Dr. Ramey’s Website here

My trainer has only had experience with one other horse on the drug. The horse has been on it for 3 years without any problems.

Apparently, Osphos can cause colic, weakness in bones, and harm the kidneys. All of which sound pretty awful to me. Weird too, that a drug meant to heal bones can also weaken them??

It’s not horribly expensive ($300-$400) and it’s given every 6 months to a year.

When your horse was on Osphos, did they have issues with colic?
How long was/has been your horse on Osphos?
Is this a lifelong commitment? (Like adequan…)
Was your horse sound after treatment?
How long was your horse sound for?
Did you give Osphos along with other treatments?

Thanks for helping me make this decision!

[Ceylon_Star]

I don’t have any first-hand experience, but a few horses at work get Osphos.

To make sure they’re getting enough water for the first week after administration (when problems are most likely to occur) they get their feed soaked and salt added to encourage them to drink more. It seems to work well, for them at least.

They haven’t had any colic issues since starting to use osphos (3 years for one, 2 for another, and a third just received a second shot 9 months after their first). The senior pony who has been on it for 2 years has has no soundness issues since starting, and has not had any issues with it, vs the colic and seizure he had after a legend shot (vet administered). His reaction to the Legend is what spurred his owner to try osphos instead, and it was definietly the right choice for him.

Good luck!

[joiedevie99]

I’ve given it to a few of my own. Never had any issues. Tildren (which I used before Osphos, did sometimes lead to cramping and gassiness after administration).

As far as the kidneys go, it’s an open question. The safest route is to run some basic bloodwork to make sure the horse’s kidneys are in good working order before using it. If the horse already has a problem, Osphos can greatly accelerate the symptoms and cause major issues. My understanding is that it poses a very low risk of kidney issue in a horse that has healthy kidneys. Some vets think that NSAIDS given at the same time increases this risk. Mine does not, and will often give a dose of banamine after administration to ward off any crampiness.

As I understand it, the colic risk is within hours to a day of administration max - not a continuing risk.

I’ve never used it more than twice on the same horse. It is not an ongoing commitment. In your case, I suspect it would be a one-time thing. I used it once for a strained high hind suspensory at the bone, and it was a one-time use.

I’ve never given it to a horse that wasn’t sound, so I can’t answer your remaining questions.

[newhorsemommy]

We tried it on my gelding last year for severe stifle arthritis. The vet said it can help with bone pain in horses with severe arthritis or cancer. My gelding suffered no ill effects from it, but I’m also not sure how effective it was because we injected his stifles at the same time and have repeated the injections every 3 months since then.

I might be hesitant to use it in a very young horse.

[kcmel]

I gave it to my 10 YO last October for hock arthritis. I thought it helped as well as injecting his hocks. But he is starting to feel uncomfortable again, so I am a bit disappointed that it didn’t last any longer.

[CAH]

I used it on a 15 year quarter horse with feet issues. I think he has had 3 shots. No colic no issues. Depending upon how bad he is…I’ve seen improvement sometimes in two weeks. This is the longest I have gone without a shot…I think I am at 8 months or so. For this horse, it made a difference. He is a large beefy QH that goes from lame at the walk to almost completely sound.

[theresak]

I did it in April.

Vet said no NSAIDs before or after and he stuck around for 40 minutes. If a horse colics, it’s right away. Which my horse did - a crampy, gas colic. Vet administered an anti-spasmodic (not banamine) and we watched until he felt better.

It is caustic to the tissues and burns when administered, but the pain went away shortly.

I was told to watch for excessive drinking or urination as a sign of kidney issues. If noticed, we’d have to go to the vet school for treatment but my impression was the risk is not horrible if caught early and treated.

[TullyMars]

My mare had the excessive tissue burning and started behaving as if she had been stung by a bee. Shaking her neck repeatedly, throwing herself to the ground and vigorous kicks out behind her with one leg. We split the Osphos into 3 shots. L and R side of neck and R hindquarters. She finally laid down and pretended she had died. (She is a drama queen!) End result for me is that the mare is still off. So we will keep trying different things for her!

[Dawdler]

My mare had one injection back in the fall for heel pain that kept getting worse that on xray looked like it could possibly be navicular or pedal osteitis (yes, I know, totally different things :rolleyes: the xrays were basically inconclusive). The vet wouldn’t give it to her without first doing bloodwork to check her kidney function, but she didn’t have any reaction to the shots. I walked her around for about 40 minutes afterwards and kept an eye on her for any signs of colic, but she was fine. She did start to improve about 6 weeks after the shot, but I don’t really know if it was the Osphos, the wedges I had her on by that point, or some combination of the two.

[LarkspurCO]

[QUOTE=TullyMars;9041286]
My mare had the excessive tissue burning and started behaving as if she had been stung by a bee. Shaking her neck repeatedly, throwing herself to the ground and vigorous kicks out behind her with one leg. We split the Osphos into 3 shots. L and R side of neck and R hindquarters. She finally laid down and pretended she had died. (She is a drama queen!) End result for me is that the mare is still off. So we will keep trying different things for her![/QUOTE]

Oh my!:eek: Poor thing.

[hj0519]

I used it last fall my horse with who was having feet issues. No issues with the administration - she got it in three shots and then I took her out to hand graze for 20 minutes and she didn’t seem bothered at all. She’s been sound since. (We also changed her shoeing set up at the same time.)

[hunterrider33]

Mine had a ddft injury, bone degeneration and inflamed bursa, so similar diagnosis

We did 2 rounds of osphos over 10 months, he didn’t have any negative side effects but my horse is not sound a year post injury and it didn’t seem to help him. He may have been too far gone though as I’ve heard other people say they have had good results.

[horsepoor]

I have used it for two horses. For both, we made sure they were off all NSAIDs for a couple of weeks prior and did blood work to check kidney function before hand. As others have said, it was split into 3 shots. One horse did have mild colic symptoms almost immediately, but we just walked him a bit while the vet was still here working on other horses, and horse was fine after a few minutes. The other horse showed no signs of colic or any adverse reaction.

Neither horse had a really positive outcome either. One has cervical arthritis that had previously been injected with good results, but this time, since he had a founder episode earlier in the year (he’s IR/EMS), we didn’t want to risk injecting steroids so tried the osphos. Didn’t do a thing for him, far as I could tell. The other horse had severe bone bruising in the coffin bone and some loss of bone (pedal osteitis) and osphos was used in conjunction with some other treatments, none of which made a bit of difference for him.

[BruBoy]

We have a 5 year old that fractured his knee when he was 1.5 years of age. He was not supposed to make it within the year of his diagnosis. There is an old post on here that gives more detail.

We take annual x-rays to track the progress of his fracture. The carpal bone looks moth eaten and fragile on x-rays BUT he has never been lame.

Tildren and/or Osphos were too risky at the time because he was young and growing, so we did Adequan, Legend and bone supplementation over the years as he was not a candidate for surgery (bone was crushed and the current vet thinks it looks more like a bone infection had occurred and he’s a massive boy).

We got him through the past few years (he’s 5 and a half now…wipe tear) and finally we could do an Osphos treatment to see if it would help with the regeneration of bone. Lameness was not an indicator of success because he has never been lame. We x-rayed his knee prior to treatment in August, and then x-rayed the knee again in January. There was a definite improvement in the bone density within 5 months. The knee will never be perfect but we have clearance from the vet to put him into light training under saddle.

Our boy experienced no ill side effects or adverse reactions after treatment. From a lameness perspective, I don’t know if it helped but on x-rays there was a clinical improvement of bone.

We will be doing another round this summer.

[gailbyrd]

Bringing back a 3 year old thread to see if there are any updates to your use of OSPHOS or if anyone else can add to the story, good or bad. Thanks,

[EVneo]

@gailbyrd

Bringing back a 3 year old thread to see if there are any updates to your use of OSPHOS or if anyone else can add to the story, good or bad. Thanks,

I have a senior appendix on it. We had evented and done lower level dressage, but she was on a cocktail of osphos, equioxx, cosequin, and isox. She has navicular and arthritis, and was easing into retirement - I think it helped keep her sound enough for light work for the 3 years she was on it. She never had any adverse reactions to it, we did it 3 or 4x a year. She’s now fully field retired, and we pulled her off osphos, isox, and equioxx unless she’s super achey, and switched her to cosequin asm.

[PNWjumper]

@gailbyrd

Bringing back a 3 year old thread to see if there are any updates to your use of OSPHOS or if anyone else can add to the story, good or bad. Thanks,

It sent my horse (my TB who shows in the big jumpersl) into kidney failure to the tune of a $5k emergency vet hospital visit. Not to mention the fact that the vets expect my horse will struggle with kidney issues for the rest of his life and we worry every time we give him anything that could be hard on him (including very basic things like bute). We did it because he broke a coffin bone (which we discovered many months later, when he was already back to sound and had been jumping around at 1.40m/1.50m for months since the incident). IIRC, the vet’s comment was, “well it’s not necessary, but it really can’t hurt.” Note, I do not blame my vet as I made the decision in the end. But I should know at this point that any time ANYONE says “hey, it can’t hurt!” I should run the other way (in the same way that omeprazole cost me $10k in vet hospitalizations on the same horse).

So would I use Osphos again? Only in a situation where the vets felt that it absolutely and specifically would address a very specific issue. But I wouldn’t “throw it” at a non-specific lameness or give it, like in my case, to a sound horse.

[scrbear11]

I used it in my 8 year old mare.

She presented just not quite right. She’s always been quick off the ground with her front feet, like she’s foot sore. We did foot x-rays and found chips off her navicular bone. After discovery we decided to proceed with Osphos. No issues after injection. She had to walk for 20 minutes, and then just monitor for any weird colicky type signs.

BUT a few weeks later she started stopping at a horse show. I hung it up for the day and called the vet the next business day and set up an appointment - there just was something wrong. Before the vet could come out she came in from turnout with a swollen fetlock. Short of it, after an MRI she was diagnosed with a sub chondral bone injury to P2 with an avulsion fracture at the collateral ligament attachment, and a torn collateral ligament. This is basically a race horse injury. My mare does the Jumpers.

I believe she started having pain at the horse show and then did the remainder of the damage on turnout. Am I sure it happened because of the Osphos (decreased bone density caused by Osphos in younger horses)? No. But it’s too coincidental, in my opinion. I won’t do it again.

She’s presently maintained (and sound) with pour in pads and isoxsuprine. I won’t do Osphos again.

[joiedevie99]

To update my 3 year old comment above, my vets have gotten much more strict about no NSAIDS with Osphos. They now request no NSAIDS for 48 hours before/after administration, and give Buscopan for cramping cases - not banamine.

[theresak]

@joiedevie99

To update my 3 year old comment above, my vets have gotten much more strict about no NSAIDS with Osphos. They now request no NSAIDS for 48 hours before/after administration, and give Buscopan for cramping cases - not banamine.

Same, and we’ve run kidney numbers before administering Osphos.

My vets are also recommending letting Equioxx flush from the system once a month or checking kidney numbers twice a year for a horse that’s on Equioxx - they think 2 cases of kidney failure were related in some part to Equioxx.