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  Discussion on Vaccine reaction getting worse each year
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Member:
Danny

Posted on Saturday, Mar 8, 2003 - 7:57 pm:

Hi all,

I have a 19 year old quarter horse that I have owned since he was a 3 year old. I have always given him multiple vaccines two times yearly. As a young horse he would typically have a mild but delayed reaction to his shots(2-3 days after being vaccinated) which would consist of stiff neck w/slight swelling and general malaise for around a day. After this he would be fine.

As the years have rolled on my horse has reacted more strongly each time he is vaccinated. At 18(which was last year) he had a delayed reaction which consisted of the typical reaction of the past, but this time he mildly coliced too. I want to say I have always buted him before and during the reaction days following vaccination.

Six months ago, it was time to vaccinate again. This time we buted him for a couple of days before being vaccinated, then we used banimine for the first three or four days after. He seemed fine the first few days. I thought we got by this time with very little reaction. Then on the fifth day he began the old routine reaction he always had before...neck stiffness...general malaise...no colic this time though. This lasted for around two-three days. I kept him on banimine for the pain and low grade fever he was running. Then a week after the initial vaccines, he started swelling under the jaw. We put him on more meds and was able to pull him through this pretty severe delayed reaction to his recent round of vaccines. It took my old guy around three weeks to fully recuperate this time.

My question is that it is nearly time for vaccines again. I'm afraid eventually the shots are going to kill my horse as he reacts so increasingly terrible to them as he ages. What should I do? He doesn't go anywhere much anymore and isn't exposed to new horses too often...I do board him with a friend on occation if I need to go out of town though so I don't feel comfortable forgoing the shots altogether.

Thanks for any insight...Debbie
Member:
Sonnynbr

Posted on Saturday, Mar 8, 2003 - 8:41 pm:

Hi- I have the same exact thing. We decided to give my horse (also a 19 yo gelding) banamine instead of bute. Also, my vet suggests that the adjunctives in the flu/rhino vaccine (the stuff that carries the vaccine into the horse) were the cause of the reaction...so we switched to the Heska intranasal flu vaccine....guess what NO reaction. I also re-evaluated my situation...horse at home, private, few strangers horses here...WHY am I vaccinating??? Flu is short lived vaccine. But the intranasal did not cause such a trainwreck!!! Good luck...
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Sunday, Mar 9, 2003 - 8:08 am:

Bute works just as well as Banamine for this problem and it is much cheaper, it is just a matter of giving adequate doses and not stopping too soon. Debra your horse needs longer treatment. Sister has two good points. Minimizing the vaccines too only those of real importance is a good one Debra, using the article on vaccines and the diseases you vaccinate for you can go over your program to see if there are not some that really are not that indicated. Also switching to the intranasal products where available will relieve any problems from those specific vaccines.
DrO
Member:
Danny

Posted on Sunday, Mar 9, 2003 - 8:31 am:

Thanks Dr.O and Sister,

Thank you for your prompt replies. I will speak to my Vet about limiting this season's vaccines to only what is absolutely necessary for our region(South Florida). I will also look into intranasal products too. Dr.O, as far as I know, I have had him on adequate dosages of Bute and/or Banimine, and have also kept him on these med's until he is no longer sick(for however long his reaction lasts). It just seems as the years have gone by my horse's reactions are becoming more delayed and when they occur the symptoms have grown worse and worse with each passing year.

Thanks...Debbie
Member:
Parfait

Posted on Sunday, Mar 9, 2003 - 10:24 am:

Debbie,

I have two mares right now who are allergic to vaccines: one is reactive to the adjuvant that Ft Dodge uses for all their vaccines and one is reactive to Rhino antibodies. I would never have found this out had I continued to give all my shots at once. It is more expensive to separate them, that's for sure but with a problem child such as yours it might be worth it.

Also, I'm guessing you have already done it but I switched to different makers for the vaccines until I found one they could tolerate. Good luck!
Kerry
Member:
Danny

Posted on Monday, Mar 10, 2003 - 9:03 pm:

Kerry,

This sounds like the best advice yet. I will split all the necessary vaccines up to isolate and also look into the intranasal products.

Thanks again...Debbie
Member:
Sandee

Posted on Monday, Mar 24, 2003 - 12:01 pm:

Dr. O - This is good timing, as I've been worried about this also. My horses are vaccinated yearly for Eeastern-Western Encephalitis, Rabies, Tetnus, and, starting last year, West Nile. I have a 26 year old gelding and a 12 year old mare. Both had reactions, a little more severe than they had the year before. It was the first time for the West Nile Vaccine......my mare foundered 3 days after the vaccination (she has never foundered before - it was not a severe case, we were back at work within a month or so). Now I am afraid of the vaccines.....my horses go nowhere - they are strictly at-home pleasure and trail animals, not trailered anywhere. Do they NEED all these vaccinations? Rabies last 3 years for dogs, but we do horses yearly? And tetnaus goes much longer than that for humans, do horses really need them yearly? This is becoming a big topic of discussion in my area (northern NH). I want them to be safe, but hate to put them through this if it isn't necessary. What's your opinion?
Sandee
Member:
Sonnynbr

Posted on Monday, Mar 24, 2003 - 7:52 pm:

It is time for vaccines for us here in the south, and I am seriously considering DrOpping flu/rhino for good ( we also do not go out much) and only giving the intranasal flu (Heska ) if we will be partying. Rabies is a real threat down here...we are very rural, but alot of rabies cases show up in cities like Atlanta! Go figure! Guess there is limited space if you're a rabid racoon in downtown. So, I will do rabies once a year. WNV is also very real and present...will do on that one. I heave read it is a very effective vaccine, at that. The three way (includes tetanus) I will do once a year. I am reviewing my parasite control and hope to bealot more choosy as to who we ride with, who we let on the property, etc.
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Tuesday, Mar 25, 2003 - 6:15 am:

Sandee, the question is whether you are willing to take the risk of not vaccinating. All I can do is present the pros and cons of each vaccine (see the article on vaccines and follow the links to the articles on the diseases of interest. Why rabies is done yearly in the horse is explained in the article). You need to investigate the incidence of these diseases in your area. With these two pieces of information you can better make this decision. We try to print the incidence of these diseases in the articles but most of these are not reportable and official tallies not kept. Note: none of the diseases you list are gotten from other horses.

Concerning your horse that foundered. This is not a commonly reported reaction (I do not know of any cases) to vaccination. A horse with a very sore neck (common with vaccines) can move exactly like a foundered horse. Or the founder may have been incidental. If you and your vet are confident it was foundering and feel it was do to the vaccines you need to balance this risk against that of the diseases.
DrO
Member:
Sandee

Posted on Tuesday, Mar 25, 2003 - 7:46 am:

Sister: Rabies is a problem up here, too....we are also very rural, bordered by woods all around. At this point, I am leaning towards doing just rabies and West Nile. It's amazing to me - I know of someone in our area who has an incredibly old horse (in his 30's) - he has never vaccinated this horse, who is not ridden and roams loose on their property, hasn't had a farrier for about 10 years now, and that horse is doing fine....even his feet aren't bad, amazingly enough. And some of us spend hundreds on health care for our animals, and ours are the ones that end up having a problem!! Figure that one out!!
Dr. O - thanks for the response....i'll continue reading the links you mentioned, as well as talking this over with my vet. He and my farrier both are confident that the mare foundered - the farrier feels it might have been something that was brewing, and the added stress of all the shots at once tipped the scales....luckily, it was a very mild case.
Member:
Sonnynbr

Posted on Tuesday, Mar 25, 2003 - 8:40 pm:

Sandee, when my geding had a reaction to the flu/rhino shot a few years ago, he was so sore in the neck, hot swollen and he didn't DARE take a step, move, breathe or bat an eyelash. If I didn't know better or not realized he had just had a shot, I would've said "there stands a foundering horse" Maybe your horse had the scales tipped, but we watched closely at his feet for days after expecting the worse...but my vet at the time also said he had never heard of foundering from a vaccine.....
Member:
Sandee

Posted on Wednesday, Mar 26, 2003 - 10:04 am:

Hi Sister - That's interesting to hear. My mare was really sore the day after the shot (Sunday), so I didn't ride that day. Came home from work on Monday, and she was perfect - we had an awesome trail ride, and when I checked them at 10 PM, there was no problem. At 6 AM, I opened the feed window to her stall, and she was leaning against the side of the stall, holding up her left front foot, shaking and looking completely miserable. The foot and leg were HOT. Because she has had an abscess in the past (that took a long time to get rid off), the vet said she wasn't sure if it was an absess or founder. My farrier, however, said that she had definitely foundered. It may have been brewing, because we constantly struggle with her weight (she's a Morgan), and her weight was up, though not excessively, at that time. (I have since been using Quiessence, a magnesium supplement, and she's a svelte, trim little girl these days!!). But despite the foot problem, she had no soreness in her neck......go figure. The founder had to have been very mild, because we were back at work within a month or so - she was touchy after her first shoeing (we did shoes/pads), but after the second day, she was perfectly sound. Founder always strikes fear in my heart, my riding buddy down the road also has a morgan mare, who foundered severely and was unridable for almost 2 years. I never saw a poor horse so miserable in my life........my vet also said the same thing yours did, about not seeing a horse founder from a vaccine....but my farrier tells a different story (he's a crusty old soul who has shod horses for 40 years!). You sure get a lot of conflicting stories when you are dealing with a situation like this!! That's when I started subscribing here, to find out what others have experienced.....
Member:
Kayfry

Posted on Tuesday, Apr 1, 2003 - 10:39 am:

Interesting to hear so many others have had vaccine reactions. I have a 15-year-old Appaloosa gelding who came to me as a 4-year-old. The first several times we have him his annual vaccinations he reacted severely - in his case, no noticeable local reaction in terms of a stiff neck, but he would spike a high fever (up to 105 degrees) within hours of the vaccinations, and needless to say would also go off his feed and look generally miserable. After having to call the vet back out in the middle of the night to give him something to get the fever down several times, my vets took to giving this horse IV Banamine along with his injections - since it's only about twice a year (we do divide them, but have never been able to pin down for sure which vaccine is the culprit), I don't mind the extra expense of the Banamine, and he's never had a problem again with this regimen. This horse still travels and shows, but I have an older Shetland pony who does not go anywhere and suffers from chronic heaves and Cushings disease; I only give him the shots that seem essential - rabies, tetanus, and we've just added West Nile - because I don't want to cause an unnecessary reaction in an already compromised immune system.
Member:
Trotter

Posted on Thursday, Dec 16, 2004 - 12:19 am:

I recently met a woman who told me about her horse foundering after it was given vaccinations. The horse suffered for over a year although many treatments and no expense were spared. Finally a holistic veterinarian was consulted and within 24 hours of the first treatment, the laminitis began to resolve (much to the surprise of the by now, skeptical owner, who had tried everything). Titres were eventually done on the horse and the results were 'off the scale.' The holistic vet suggested that the horse never be vaccinated again. The horse did very well for the next six years (no vaccinations, no foundering). Finally under pressure from others at her barn the owner gave in and had her horse vaccinated against rabies. Afterall, it had been 6 years since the horse had been given any vaccinations and the owner worried about rabies in the area. The horse was given the vaccine and within 24 hours the horse foundered once again. Fortunately the horse again recovered and lived many more years with no foundering and no more vaccines. I hope she doesn't mind me sharing but I feel it such an important topic. After my experience (long story -- in another post) I now have titres done on our horse and only give vaccines that are absolutely necessary. (yes, it can cost a bit to do all the titres but so do all those vet bills following a serious reaction!) Doing the titres gives me peace of mind -- knowing the horse is protected without the vaccines!
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Thursday, Dec 16, 2004 - 7:42 am:

Hello Judy,
If this were a common problem and if vaccine efficacy was very variable and titers correlated well with efficacy this would be logical. But with the safety (especially the rabies vaccine) amd relative cheapness of the common vaccines (compared with running titers for these diseases), and pretty well established efficacies of the vaccines I think our recommendations are more sensible and economical for 99.9% of the equine population.

Any horse with a known serious sensitivity to a vaccine should not be given that vaccine.
DrO
New Member:
escado

Posted on Monday, Mar 17, 2008 - 12:34 pm:

My trakehner gelding has been vaccinated all his life (16 years). Last year he had a severe reaction to the flu vaccine. My other 6 horses were fine. Within 1 hour he could not walk, gums were pale and muscles were pulsating. The vet gave him a shot of antihistamine. As he is an FEI level competitor in dressage to compete he must have flu shots. We are now giving him the shot of antihistamine prior to the vaccine and this seems to work. We have had no problems since.
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Tuesday, Mar 18, 2008 - 7:02 am:

Hello Christina, have you considered the IN flu vaccine, not only is it unlikely to cause such a reaction it give better protection.
DrO
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