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  Discussion on Pancur 5 day - Worried about side affects
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Posted on Sunday, Apr 29, 2001 - 9:38 am:

My vet recently prescribed the 5 day Pancur for my new 6 year old mare. The mare was given Ivermectin 6 weeks ago, but her prior worming and vaccination history is not documented. He also gave the mare a few vaccines, but I don't know which until I get his bill.

Each day following the initial Pancur, the mare has become more noticeably listless. She is generally a tense type that isn't a great eater, but now she is off her feed. We have great grass that she is eating. This morning she layed down in the field twice, which is very unusual.

I have ridden this mare (lightly) each day following the worming. She was sleepy on the x-ties. She was much less fiesty under saddle. I thought it was my great training take affect (lol), but now I think it was because she was sick.

I have two more days of Pancur to give; today and tomorrow. Whether to give it or not is the question. I am worried. I can't talk to my vet until Monday.

I read your article on worming and was confused with the statement "they can cause diarrhea, weight loss, chronic colic". Did you mean worms or the Benzimadazoles? What is the most serious side affects you have seen from Panacur?

Posted on Sunday, Apr 29, 2001 - 3:29 pm:

I have used this worming proceedure several times and have found its benifits were outstanding, but I would not be riding her during this at all. Perhaps Dr O can comment on this; My first thought is that her parasite load is such that she is feeling poopy from the parasite die off. I have heard that they can have a transient fever in response to high parasite die off that can make them feel cruddy. Have you taken her temp? I think the quote you refer to is the effect of the encrusted worms, this was the symptoms my gelding had.

Posted on Sunday, Apr 29, 2001 - 5:21 pm:

If she was given vacs. that would be my guess as to why shes off. It always slows mine down for a couple days. Just a guess tho.

Posted on Sunday, Apr 29, 2001 - 6:26 pm:

Thanks Ladies.

I did ask my vet about riding and he said that the injections could make the neck stiff and that I shouldn't ask for lots of bending and lateral work. But he did say it was ok to ride lightly. He didn't mention a word about the worming causing a problem.

Since I put up this post, I have searched the net and found only postive reports on Panacur. I went out and purchased a paste Probiotic and gave it to her. It can't hurt.

I am not going to ride today or tomorrow.

Posted on Monday, Apr 30, 2001 - 7:52 am:

Hello All,
Marion depression was a problem I saw when using oxibendazole, which was part of my regular deworming program before quest came out. It seemed to effect about 2% of the horses dewormed with the owners reporting the horse looking slightly off the following day. Since I dewormed several large barns (30 to 60 horses) regularly for years and I became accoustomed to the the next day getting such reports, something I did not get with the ivermectin. This is not listed on the label or precautions as a side effect for this or other benzimadazoles and do not know if it represented horses with large preexisiting worm burdens or not, as horses would be going in and out of these barns pretty regularly. The Panacur regimen is considered safe as long as you do not start with large numbers of encysted larvae in the bowel wall.

If your horse was vaccinated at the same time this is far more likely to be do to that as Dianne suggested. This is pretty common following vaccination. For suggestions on preventing this in the future see the article on vaccination.
DrO
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