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  Discussion on Gastric Ulcers?
Author Message
Member:
scrupi1

Posted on Sunday, Feb 1, 2009 - 8:15 am:

We have taken on a project mare that is very hot tempered and difficult to handle as well as sour under saddle and while saddling and blanketing but does have amazing athletic potential. We treated her for a month for gastric ulcers about 3 months ago (a full tube of ulcergard daily for 30 days) on our vets recommendation but did not have her scoped. She always eats her meals, maintains good body weight, has a nice shiny coat, is out on pasture 24/7 except when brought in for meals during which hay is front of her at all times, is ridden 4-5 times a week, given at least 2 consecutive days off and trailered out for lessons/schooling shows (intro dressage, jumping 2 foot courses, schooling cross country at low levels) about 4 times per month, and given a maintenance dose of ulcergard everytime she leaves the farm. My dressage trainer yesterday stopped our lesson because she was swishing her tail and pinning her ears (she always does this) and said that she was obviously not comfortable under saddle and recommended getting her scoped for ulcers. I am planning on doing this but am wondering if I should suspect ulcers based on behavior alone when she has none of the other symptoms. When we treated her for ulcers before it did not change her basic behavior, she was still very girthy, pinning her ears and biting the air and demonstrates the same behavior when being blanketed. I am also planning to have a full lameness exam performed if gastric ulcers are not found and am trying to make an appointment to have my saddle fit checked. Is there anything else I should be doing?
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Sunday, Feb 1, 2009 - 9:22 am:

Susanne,
Suspect from behavior alone...maybe. But when specific treatment did not alleviate the problem I would not continue pursing it like it was my top rule out. Randomly scope horses and you will find many with ulcers that have no clinical or behavioral problems.
DrO
Member:
dres

Posted on Sunday, Feb 1, 2009 - 11:01 am:

Susanne, I am glad you are going to look a little deeper into maybe other issues .. Hocks?
What I have found is that mares can be B*tches for no reason other then wanting to be alfa mare..
Good luck and let us know what you come up with ..

On the first day God created horses, on the second day he painted them with spots..
Member:
ekaufman

Posted on Sunday, Feb 1, 2009 - 11:49 am:

Hi Susanne,

It sounds like you have been proactive wrt ulcers. Have you checked her saddle fit carefully and had a lameness exam? Those would be next steps for me, with the picture you paint.

Good on you for giving this mare a shot. I hope she turns into a willing partner, and lives up to her athletic potential.

Let us know what you learn.
Member:
rtrotter

Posted on Sunday, Feb 1, 2009 - 3:29 pm:

Hi Susanne,

Your mare sounds an awful lot like a mare of mine that I recently sold. Always had an attitude problem, did not like to be harnessed, did not like when I crossed the belly straps of her blankets, did not get along very well with other horses, seemed to always be in heat or at least acted like it. I went the gastric ulcer route, spent a fortune, no effect. I tried the Regumate route, but that was very expensive and did not seem to work well at all and I was up to almost 20 cc's a day. I tried progesterone and chorionic, but the progesterone gave her a lump on her neck and the chorionic only worked if if the vet caught her at just the right moment which for the most part was a hit or miss operation. As a last resort, I had her internally ultrasounded, it seemed she was ovulating several times in a month, more than a normal mare would, this kept her constantly cranky except for a very few days.My vet suggested placing a large size marble in her uterus to simulate pregnancy and having her sewn up(caslicked). It took a couple of heat cycles to notice the difference, but she did get much better. The other weird thing about this mare was that her udder was unusually large for a mare that had never been bred. Maybe her internal problems caused this, I am not sure. I always had to keep her udder, in between her hind legs and her midline in front of her udder very clean and occasionally I had to milk her ( I know sounds strange). The only thing the vet and I could come up with was that her body, because of the reproductive problems, was causing her to secrete an excess amount of fluid that constantly dripped down between her legs causing crud to form more than normal. I had her cultured also and no infection was found.

I would do an internal ultrasound to see if your mare might have a reproductive problem that is causing her cranky moods. I would also pull a blood and check her SGOT, CPK, and LDH levels to make sure she isn't having a tying up or enzyme problem.

Good Luck, and let us know what you find out.
Rachelle
Member:
scrupi1

Posted on Monday, Feb 2, 2009 - 5:47 am:

Thank you everyone for your suggestions. I am going to try to get her in at the vets this week and I will let you know what we find. It is good to know I am not the only that has had to deal with a cranky mare! Susanne
Member:
scrupi1

Posted on Saturday, Feb 7, 2009 - 6:01 pm:

I ended up taking the mare to the vet on Wednesday. She was absolutely horrible to work with, was very nervous and anxious, would not stand still for the exam, kept stepping side to side on the cross ties and flipping her head around. The vet wanted to see me ride and we had to take her into the stall to even get her bridle on because she was throwing her head around and backing up to get away from me. It was awful. He watched me ride and said that she looked off on her right hind tracking to the right. We could not flex her because she was so worked up and is not good with her hind legs anyways. He mentioned that it would be good to check her thyroid levels and her reproductive system but after seeing how she behaved on the crossties and the struggle to get her tacked up he said that it wouldn't be worth spending money to track down exactly what was wrong with her and recommended selling her. I asked him how he thought I would be able to sell a lame horse and he mentioned taking her to the horse sales in VA. I was really horrified actually, I mentioned x-raying and injecting the hocks if that was the issue and he said that she was the kind of horse that would not take care of herself and that injecting would be a waste of money.
So, I got home and called my regular vet (I had already spoken with her about the mare and she knew I was taking her to the vets - she is a mobile unit and doesn't have all the equipment that they have on hand), we discussed everything and decided to address the lameness issue first, get that resolved and then look into her behavior issues. So after an exam she decided the best option was to try to inject the hocks and see if this helped. She said that admittedly this was a shotgun approach but would save me a bit of money and we would know if the hocks were the issue if the lameness resolved, if it did not we would have to go into further diagnostics. So, basically I feel like I wasted my money with the first vet, and I guess it remains to be seen whether I have wasted money on the injections. I am trying to remain optimistic about this mare but it was not encouraging to be told by a total stranger that I should sell the horse.
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