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| Discussion on Quercetin As a Preventive Supplement | |
| Author | Message |
| Member: ajudson1 |
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| Moderator: DrO |
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| Member: ajudson1 |
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| Member: ajudson1 |
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| Moderator: DrO |
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| Member: ajudson1 |
Posted on Tuesday, Dec 28, 2010 - 9:46 am: Good Morning DrO,Apology accepted. I understand that horses can develop heaves from poor hay. I am not looking for a magic bullet rather trying to weigh my choices, giving the horses a "boost" if it helps. In 35 years of horse ownership, I feel I have been very fortunate in that I've only owned one horse who had some respiratory trouble. And considering some of the hay fed I know I have been very lucky! I also understand you want scientific proof, and suggest to us to do what has been proven. That is why I asked your advice. I, on the other hand, believe in preventive medicine completely having had first hand experience with a "Preventive Clinic" vs the others...but that is for another discussion on a different website. Since my horses are NOT showing signs of respiratory trouble, buying the product and feeding it will not prove or disprove anything. My conclusion, if they stay healthy, would be either the supplement helped, or the hay wasn't that bad, or my horses just weren't bothered by those specific mold spores present in this hay. I am frustrated at the thought of throwing away $100's of dollars worth of hay, possibly $1000+, and starting over, then scrambling for hay next summer depending on what mother nature gives us. And I really don't know how much mold I am dealing with as I HAVE trouble if I keep opening and sniffing bales! Some are obviously moldy of course, others hard to tell. Of course we all know this is one of joys of horse ownership! 
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| Moderator: DrO |
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| Member: ajudson1 |
Posted on Tuesday, Dec 28, 2010 - 6:46 pm: I understand what you are saying DrO. And I agree. And I am most certainly am trying to avoid feeding any hay I think has mold in any form.I guess the best way I can say what I am/was looking for was more of an "insurance policy" just in case one or all of my horses are sensitive to the hay from last summer. Until I open all the remaining 4-500 bales, I don't know what I have for sure. I moved around 20 bales today and opened them before throwing them down. Some which appeared heavy seemed good, while some I thought would be great, were one's I put aside! I think I am in the midst of the last 100 I got and they will be better after this...I am pretty sure the first 250 were great bales. (have a moniter syle barn and have fed last years hay and am working my way to the first hay I got this last summer) So it's not like I have a barn full of only iffy hay. What I have decided based on my beliefs, and researching, is I am going to give everyone a high potency multi-vitamin/mineral supplement until spring. Again based on my beliefs and experiences with my own body & health, it makes sense to me to cover all the bases that way as an insurance policy to keep their immune systems in peak form..."just in case." I could of course end up throwing all the hay away, and end up buying pellets or other hay...I just don't know at this time if I will end up doing that. Seeing how the last 3 years have been terrible for hay crops; 2 years of DrOught, and humid and wet this summer, I feel very comfortable with my decision to add the multi. Even if I get new hay and/or add pellets, I would still like my insurance;-). Most likely this will be a distant memory come spring, and everyone will be fine in spite of all my worries. And to anyone reading this; be very very picky on what hay you accept so you don't go through this aggravation all winter! I goofed when I made the choice to accept hay I questioned. Never again! As for the above supplement I was quoting(the respiratory, not the multi) I cannot find anything in it other than the quercetin and bioflavonoids that have antihistamine properties. Which is provided in smaller amounts than I would take myself, and I do weigh less than any of my horses  ! When I realised that, I went back to looking for a good multi- and back to cussing the weather, my hay man who insisted he knew more than me, my hubby who insisted the hay was o.k., "______" should know he baled it....yadda yadda yadda. I find studying any kind of supplements and all forms of healing fascinating. Vitamins, herbals, shaking chicken bones!  But I've learned to question and look for proof after ingesting some er, um, "witches brews" as my husband will tell you. Avoiding the bad stuff and eating the nutritious stuff is the best way to go for humans and horses without a doubt.
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| Member: jones |
Posted on Sunday, Apr 10, 2011 - 11:25 pm: Angie,Here is a link to a pubmed study regarding the use of quercetin and the supression of alergy response in animals (mice  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18026696 I also have a great response to seasonal alergies with 500mg of daily quercetin. Its also apparently great for men with pelvic pain due to prostatitis Per Webmed and Pubmed. Here is a book that you can do a google search on "Current Therapy in Equine Medicine" but no mentions of doseages of Quec. I dont know if they referance any studies or not. Oh....Try this! This is from the Smartpak site. Its in the further reading for your vet section ;) Anour R, Leinker S, van den Hoven R. Improvement of the lung function of horses with heaves by treatment with a botanical preparation for 14 days. Vet Rec. 2005 Dec 3;157(23):733-736. I asked my vet about quecertin doses for dogs as I could not find any referances either and my lab had bad alergies. The vet had a hand held device that allowed her to look it up...presto....50 to 500mg safe for dogs. I dont know what links she had. I would go a lot lower in a lab however...everything seems to be toxic to labs I would not give my horse more quecertin than is being offered in any supplement (ie the Smartpak Smartbreath) due to toxicity concerns at higher levels. What is good for mice & men does not mean a thing for the horse. I would suspect that smartpak would have some major liablity issues if it were to put more of a substance in its name brand if it were not tested for toxicity somehow! I know I have read a study that looked at respiratory issues in horses and dusty barns and the most effective thing to prevent respiratory issues in the horses was to wet the hay. Here in arizona EVERYTHING is dusty! I guess eating spores are better than breathing spores when it comes to lungs and alergies so I wet the hay... the good the bad and the ugly hay. I return more hay than I keep but I take the quecertin and I wear a mask when serving the hoses breakfast Keep looking, Im sure there is a study out there somewhere. If you call Smartpak and ask about the smartbreath product you may get some place to begin. LMK! } |
| Member: ajudson1 |
Posted on Monday, Apr 11, 2011 - 7:44 am: Thank you jones for finding some information and taking time to put it on my discussion.My horses have been fine all winter. Hardly a cough, no signs of any respiratory distress at all. What I've been doing is feeding the "GOOD" hay in the slow feeders, and the "OTHER" hay gets fed either on the ground after being shook out good, or fed when it's raining or snowing. (wetting hay all winter just isn't easy up here!) We had an offer for some other hay, so thinking we needed to make room, my husband and I opened up lots of the hay. If we pulled out "smoking" hay, we tossed the bale. Others, we put aside since it was dusty, and less than perfect, but not the worst either. Turned out the other hay we were considering was worse than anything in our barn! And the guy was miffed I didn't like his hay. At least now hubby is on the same page as he can tell the difference. Someone told me that old timers say a horse isn't bothered by white mold but can't handle black mold. Well, if I see any slimy black mold that is obviously going on the manure pile...ewww! I am pretty sure dusty hay isn't good, dusty/musty hay isn't good, yet at the same time, horses do graze with nose to the ground and I am pretty sure they are exposed to all kinds of molds. 'Nways, you make some great points on the doseage and since I ordered the multi from SmartPak, I should have thought to ask them questions. The multi is for horses on grass and I believe it is an excellant product but I am on always on the lookout for something cheaper of course. We have a choco lab too. He used to get severe skin allergies every spring and went through $$$$'s with vet visits, and corti...whatever, antibiotics for the oozing rashes, ointments, etc. I started giving him generic antihistamine pills after searching it on the web. I also did a lot of research on dog foods. I found Canidae to be good for him, and now I buy the 4Health from TSC. No grains in his food. (Might be more grains in the 4H food than Candidae) He gets raw venision occasionally too. Haven't given him a pill for itchiness for a couple of years, so diet matters. Never give the crap the vets suggest, all those high dollar foods are full of grains! (We just got a kitten that came with a bag of food..no way am I feeding that crap! Cats do even worse with carbs from grains) This is another book you might find interesting. It's not available yet but I am signed up for it from Amazon. https://www.allbookstores.com/Healthy-Horses-Horse-Care-Effective/9789057270628 Thanks again for the links and suggestions! To healthy breathing!! 
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| Member: klowe |
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| Member: ajudson1 |
Posted on Monday, Apr 11, 2011 - 11:38 am: Kathy,When my kids were small (22 & 17 now) they all had allergies. We tried conventional first and the specialists had the kids on all kinds of inhalers and meds. We were also driving 6 hours to a more natural clinic and got the allergy DrOps. They were in favor of quercetin. After taking my 4 year old daughter to ER the middle of night, and having the on call dr. treating her for an asthma attack, and finding out THREE days later she had pneumonia, never had asthma, never developed asthma, I got very interested in alternative medicine and preventive medicine. I gave both kids, and myself, quercetin and FREEZE dried stinging nettles. The quercetin was blue bonnet brand I think, and not sure on the nettles, but there are certian companies that are better than others with herbal products. The whole problem with most otc meds and herbals is you can't always be sure you are getting what the label says! There is the German E Commission I think it's called, that has good information on supplements and safety. (I think there is an $800.00 book put out by them too!) Also I would suggest for anyone trying herbals or even higher doses of vitamins to be sure and have a good book on the possible interactions between those and any drugs being ingested at the same time. DIET is everything IMO. I don't care what anyone says, horses don't need grains/sweet feeds, dogs & cats don't need grains! And none of us need processed foods, nitrates, artificial anything. I laughed reading the label on the healthy kitty food that came with our daughter new kitty: All natural, gentle cereal grains, no ground yellow corn. On the ingredient list on the side: chicken meal, corn gluten meal, ground rice (doesn't specify white or brown) chicken fat, wheat flour, natural flavors...etc...YUCK!!!!! It's like the lo starch horse feeds: Grain by- products, forage by- products, by- product that, by- product this. Do they sweep the floors, add shredded paper to the mix, dose it with vitamins, and then mix it, heat it, and turn it into pellets that we pay through the nose for?? Side note here: I have been sending out links to everyone to go to DrOz's website. Fascinating new information about what they think causes Alzheimers!!! It's like diabetes in the brain, and goes again to out lousy DIETS!!! It's not hard to figure our pets suffer the same from their diets??? O.K., as you can see I get passionate about feed stuffs, and herbals. But maybe if we all insist on only REAL food in every bag of feed we buy, and what we feed ourselves, we'd all be healthier. And wealthier. I believe there is a cure for everything in nature. Either through advoidance, or through it's ingestion in some form. But no profit in it for the big drug companies. Stepping off my hay bale now!
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| Member: jones |
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| Moderator: DrO |
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| Member: mrose |
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| Member: ajudson1 |
Posted on Tuesday, Apr 12, 2011 - 8:22 am: DrO,being the voice of reason and Science is a "downer" aye? But very important since we all need to be reminded that there are many issues to be taken into consideration if we try to apply what may work for humans to horses or dogs. I still believe that many of the alternative meds/herbs/methods do indeed have a place in keeping us healthy. I can certianly understand how tough it is to even do studies with animals vs people! I've learned to be a lot more cautious with everything from vitamains to herbs. Yet that don't mean I've quit getting excited over some new study, or hearing from someone who has tried something and got results. My horses stayed healthy all winter, nary a cough. Was it because the hay really was just dusty, and not moldy? Did I do everything right picking through it? Wetting it? Did the multi vitamin I give them help keep their immune system strong? There is no way of knowing of course. All I can say for certain is I am dang glad to see green grass starting to show!!! Now just pray for great hay crop, and perfect growing season...spring rains for growth, hot dry days for baling. <*> (I have no idea how to make praying hands, lol!) |
