The Doctor will see you now

 It's not horse related but it is very much part of my horse story.  On May 1st, I successfully defended my dissertation for my Doctorate of Business Administration.  My frantic four years of graduate school has come to an end and I am now Dr. Catie.  Yay!

Some days it still seems like something I dreamed up.  I wake up thinking I've still got homework to do or more reading that needs to be completed or some discussion posts to write.  I expect I'll be one of those doctoral students that needs six months of self care after they complete their dissertation.  After my successful defense I immediately went into a massive funk and felt terrible as my body suddenly stopped producing stress hormones like it was a full time job.  I had to beg Trainer Z for mercy in my lesson and we ended up working my walk pirouettes.  I thought I'd just rebound and be free but no, the past four years won't be that easy to shake off.  It's going to take some time for me to undo everything I did to myself in pursuit of my two graduate degrees.

But the important goal was met, I defended my dissertation before show season.  I am now able to focus on getting Theo out there and chasing that Bronze medal.  We ran through the test again and I genuinely feel comfortable with my test now.  It's not a stretch, it's where we're comfortable.  This weekend we have two attempts with two day shows.  I'm glad it's a pair of day shows since I also had Theo scoped today.  

Guess what, we've got ulcers!  Not 'omg injectables emergency' ulcers but he is on omeprazole and sucralfate for the next 28 days.  He'd been girthy in the past two weeks so I wasn't surprised.  Now I know for sure what's going on and we're going to tackle it head on.  He's always been rather ulcer prone, he stresses.  Even with his ideal set up with Trainer Z, he's delicate.  Vet wasn't worried and thinks they'll clear up with the standard treatment.  We'll rescope in a month to check up on him.

We've also had x-rays done of his teeth and his front feet as a baseline, nothing wrong.  We had his fasted blood work done for metabolic stuff.  Got his hocks done and completed another course of Adequan.  He got floated.  I've really checked him nose to toes at this point and if all we find is ulcers on my 20 year old Third level horse?  We're doing good.  He's been feeling awesome under tack and I can only imagine how good he'll feel after ulcer treatment.

Day shows are less stressful for him since he'll get to sleep in his stall at night and roll in his turn out.  Since I'm going solo (Trainer Z got injured and I'm definitely able to handle showing alone) I'm glad I'm not setting up a stall and handwalking for hours.  We'll show up, do our one test, and head home.  With our ride times, the whole thing will be done in 24 hours with 4 hours in the trailer.  5:30 pm on Saturday and 8:30am on Sunday.  I'm going to sleep in my truck in Trainer Z's parking lot because I'm not unhooking with that short of a time at the barn.  Show, park, unload Theo, flop in my truck and sleep, get up, load Theo, show again.

I don't know how we're going to do with my brain still rebooting and going out on our own but we're definitely chasing that Bronze now.  And all of that brain power I was using on school stuff can start to redirect on Theo.  Poor baby.

"Just let me drive and we'll be fine, mom."

Life with ulcers

It's amazing what a difference one little thing can make.  Theo's ulcers were treated over the winter and he responded well.  But when spring came and the trailering returned, his stomach problems returned.  He's now two weeks into a full 28 day treatment with a daily dose of paste omeprazole.  Once the 28 days is done I'll wean him off, and then give him a maintenance dose whenever he goes in the trailer.  The trailering really seems to be what sets him off.

It's freaking expensive to treat ulcers.  So expensive.  Ulcerguard is about $30 a day.  I go through Abler.com and get it down to about $7 a day.  So it's about $200 a month to have him on the treatment dose.  If I wasn't going generic, I don't know if I could afford it.  It's $900 to go through a full regimen of Ulcerguard.  Yikes.

The granules I used before were useful, but apparently he wasn't consistently eating it all.  Some days he was good, some days he was biting at the cross ties.  He likes to chuck his food everywhere while eating and I'm sure he was chewing some of it up. That keeps it from making it to the parts of his digestive system that need it.  For a horse that eats politely or is fed in a stall where they can't decide to flip their bucket over, they're a great option.  For papi?  Paste is working much better.  I know he's getting his full dose every day.

The generic paste isn't flavored.  It's also not flavorless.  As is my policy, I tasted his medicine to see how bad it was.  I was in my bathroom scrubbing with a toothbrush afterward.  It's awful.  I really worried about how I was going to get that into my horse.  Turns out it's not a problem.  Theo is such a hoover or maybe it's not that bad to a horse. We now have an easy, no stress routine.

After grooming him and giving him time to finish whatever was in his mouth, I make a big show of unwrapping three of the big, soft mints that he loves.  I make sure he can see me and hear those wrappers.  By the time I'm done, he's usually whickering to himself and leaning on the cross ties.  I pull out the syringe, dial in my dose, and try to keep Theo from pulling the syringe out of my hand while I dose him.  The tip gets bent because he pulls it into his molars in his excitement.  I dose him quickly and then start shoving peppermints in his face before he can even contemplate getting rid of the paste.  There's no way he'll spit out a peppermint, so all of the nasty meds go down the hatch with the parade of mints.  It's quickly followed by his Probios treats.  By that point, the meds are long gone.  There's usually a lot of lip licking and some extra drool afterward so I think that's the aftertaste of the meds, but too late for him to protest at that point.

Theo actually likes the sight of his ulcer meds syringe now, so this seems to be working.  I'm going to teach his leaser how to dose him so I don't have to drop by the barn on her days.  He's basically the perfect horse to learn on since he holds his mouth open and begs for his medicine.  Which blows my mind because it is really rank stuff.  I guess he considers that a small price to pay for all of the mints and treats.  Usually he has to do something difficult to get so many treats.

 He's a different horse when his stomach is happy.  I really think a lot of his rage issues come down to pain.  When he first got nasty with his first owner, she was shipping him out to the beach and to clinics.  Then he was awful at shows with various riders.  Now I'm doing preventative treatments any time he gets on a trailer and it's making a very real difference.

I'll probably be managing this the rest of his life, but it feels good to know that we found the actual cause for a set of his issues.  He wasn't angry or naughty.  He was in pain.  All it takes is a half dose the day before the show and a half dose before we get on the trailer.  That's a very minor thing to manage.

If you're thinking about trying the generic option?  I've had good experiences with Abler.  Shipping can be slow, especially if you go with the free option, but I haven't had any trouble with it.  You have to pay by electronic check or wire transfer from your bank.  If you pay by check, you'll get a phone call the next day from a company verifying your order.  It seems a bit sketchy at first, but it's totally legitimate and not a hassle so long as you answer your phone or proactively call them to verify your order.  I've found no instances of people having trouble with their products and when tested, they actually found the active ingredient to be slightly above the dose in the label.  So the med is in there, which is always a concern with a generic.

Theo is getting their AbGard product in the stable pack size.  He gets 5 markers worth of paste every day and a tube lasts him 6 days.

Pony!

I saw my pony!  And we did more than walk and shiver!  He didn't even threaten to double barrel me when I took off his blankets!

Mother Nature cooperated and it was 36* out for my lesson.  Oh, sweet bliss.  I rode without my winter coat!  I pulled off his heavy and he was happy to have it off.  I took the time to give him a good curry with the cooler folded back over his butt and he zoned out.  He was so happy.  So many itchy spots under his armor.

He's learned to deal with having his belly curried with minimal temper tantrums and today, he seemed to genuinely enjoy it.  He started biting his cross ties again last month, so I put him on a daily supplement to manage his tummy.  Two weeks in and the Smart Gut Ultra pellets seem to be doing the trick.  He's nice and chill on the cross ties and hasn't lunged around while his girth is tightened.  While his ulcers were treated for a month solid, he started to have off days again in January.  I'm suspecting that the pop rocks didn't dose him consistently so he was treated enough for symptoms to abate, but didn't completely heal.  The supp seems to be handling the problem and for now, fine.  I've got it in the back of my head that I need to do a month of paste treatments to make sure he gets every bit of medicine.  He has this annoying habit of flinging feed when he gets carried away.  But for today, the alfalfa in every feeding and the supp has him happy and comfortable.

On Tuesday, we jumpa da jumps.  After a week of very sketchy work and a sudden jump in temps, Theo was puffing and not pushing off evenly behind.  His weak right hind put in an appearance.  I joked that he was sore from all the walking in the snow, but I might not be far off.  He was, for lack of a less anthropomorphic term,  relieved to be back in work.  Trainer A noted that he never stopped licking and chewing throughout the entire ride.  I took my time warming him up and we took a lot of breaks so I don't have a stiff, sore horse for my next ride.  He was very willing through the low, gentle bounces, but when given a break, he'd huff.  Little Girl was huffing, too.  Trainer A shook her head.  Two of her fittest, best conditioned horses were huffing halfway through their gentle lesson.  It's amazing how quickly we can lose condition.  Theo went from sitting on the bit, begging for more to dragging and asking for a break in a week.  Sure, he picked up every time Trainer A reset the jumps or I asked for it, but he was quick to drop the bridle and just sink into the footing.

Wednesday was better.  We worked on trot poles and lengthening his stride.  Combined with some stretching and laterals, he's starting to sit on that right again.  Amazing how quickly he gets sticky back there.  Not lame, but just stiff. 

Today I'm planning to cut out earlyto visit the pony and it's a three day weekend with reasonable weather!  We'll see 50* tomorrow!  I might even take him out on a trail for some variety.  The name of the game now is to keep him in consistent work so we can regain lost ground.  I got my new Janet Foy book and it's great, I'll do a real review soon.  But let's just say papi is in for some new forms of torture.

Hear that, Mother Nature?  I've got stuff to do!  Leave us alone!

Eureka

Sometimes being a crazy horse mom pays off.  Sometimes.

In August, I thought I noticed a difference in Theo's behavior.  He seemed more fidgety in the cross ties, less happy about being groomed.  I keep a journal in my locker and noticed a pattern of 'tried to bite me' comments appearing.  I mean, Theo is always looking for a shot to bite someone (especially me), but this was different.  I figured he was sore and tired from all of the training we were doing and set him up with some massage sessions.  He loves his massage sessions.

In September, with regionals completely occupying my mind, I still noticed him being more fidgety then the baseline in my head.  He would bite the cross ties when I groomed him.  He's a mouthy boy in general, but that settled in my mind as unusual.  The masseuse and chiro found nothing, even noting that he was a rare case with no pain points in his back at all.  Tight spots, sure, but he leaned into his massage and never acted like something hurt.  Farrier found nothing.  Trainer saw nothing under saddle.  I thought training issue and upped his ground work.

It was October when I was brushing his belly, setting him into a teeth gnashing rage, and it suddenly hit.  I'd seen this before.  Non-specific, edgy, touchy about certain things and particularly unwilling to have his belly touched.  Coming to a head after a competition season with a lot of travel.  It flared up and faded but was always kind of there.

Hellbeast had ulcers.  We put him on ranitadine to confirm the diagnosis and he settled within days.  His stomach didn't hurt anymore and everything else just seemed to get better.  He stayed on ranitadine until I could rummage up the dough to afford a course of Ulcerguard for him.  After that, he would get a preventative dose while showing.  He gained weight and showed less anxiety about life.  He didn't really display as a horse that had stomach pain, he never colicked and was never girthy.  It was just a pattern of irritation that tipped off my vet.

Ulcerguard is no joke in terms of cost.  Neither is endoscoping.  I'm not looking to sink $3K into a diagnosis when most vets are happy to just treat and confirm when the symptoms disappear.  But Ulcerguard is $30 a tube and you need 28 of them.  YIKES.  That's not a light undertaking.  Did I want to just load up on Ulcerguard (in the form of Gastroguard) and see if it helped, or did I want to pay for a vet appointment and confirm the problem?  Because I'd still end up ponying up the dough for the Ulcerguard.

While looking at Ulcerguard prices, I stumbled on a COTH thread about generic omeprazole.  Merial lost their exclusive rights in 2015 and generics are now allowed.  Other COTH threads mentioned these 'pop rocks' for ulcers.  I hunted until I found what they were referring to.  It's generic omeprazole designed to be fed with a horse's food instead of in paste form and it comes from Abler.

It's not the most mainstream thing.  It's made in India.  But hey, I do business all the time with India for work, that didn't bother me.  A COTH poster had tested the coating of the granules and found they actually worked.  An FDA test showed they did contain the drug they should contain.  No one, anywhere, had any horse hurt by this med.  Some said it didn't work, but no one had a side effect.  Plenty of people reported good results, including at least one with a follow up endoscope.  At $200 bucks for a full 28 days of treatment?  I was willing to take the risk.  I ordered up some pop rocks.

Be warned, regular shipping is SLOW.  7 - 14 business days turns into 3 weeks when you include weekends and Thanksgiving.  I finally got Theo his first dose on Nov 30.  He gets three scoops on top of his breakfast with a bit of corn syrup to make sure he eats it all up.  You can see in the picture how little the scoop is, it's not a lot to add.  The granules are quite small.  They'll dissolve in water, so you can't add water or applesauce to their food.  Corn syrup or molasses is fine.

And you know what?  He was different on the cross ties that night.  Other people noticed.  I brushed his stomach and only got a half hearted comment out of him as opposed to a swishing tail and gnashing teeth.  It took me a second to remember he'd started his meds.  Could that be the cause on day one?  Sure it can.  I have an ulcer and I know that when I take my Prilosec, I feel better within hours.  Same chemical, same process.  This isn't something that would take days to kick in.  The acid in his stomach is reduced the same day.  He feels the difference now.  The fact that someone that had no idea he'd been dosed walked up to me and asked what was different told me it wasn't my crazy, hopeful mind.

I gave it a couple days to make sure I wasn't fooling myself.  Every day was a little different, but that's horses for you.  Temperature change, day off, construction going on outside.  But he didn't seem to mind me handling his stomach as much.  Today I wasn't paying attention while scratching his neck and shoulders with his tail brush and moved to his belly.  He didn't mind a bit.  Then Trainer A mentioned that when she tacked him for his training rides, he seemed calmer about having his belly groomed.  Suspicion confirmed.

I have accepted the fact that Theo has ulcers.  How long has he had them?  Who knows.  Maybe some of his 'rage machine' behavior all these years was because he has a sensitive tummy.  Maybe it was just because of his travel this year.  Doesn't matter.  What matters is that now I know and I can make sure this isn't a problem for him.  He will get 28 days of the treatment dose, then wean off of his pop rocks.  He'll get a preventative dose when traveling and showing in the future.  It's not a tough commitment to make when I can do it for $2 a preventative dose and it can be fed with his breakfast.  That's less than what I pay for his Smartpak.

So yes, to all of my fellow crazy horse moms, sometimes you're right when you think something is bothering your precious baby.  Sometimes, just sometimes, you're on to something and you can lead the way to solving the root cause of some of your perfect angel's problems.  Not all of them, mind you.  He still goes out the left shoulder and still wants to bite me if he thinks I'm not looking.  That's all him.