Horses

Rumor’s Ulcer Treatment

Hey Friends! If you’ve got a horse with Ulcers, you’re going to like what I’m sharing today!

First though, Happy Thanksgiving (a little early)! Can you believe the year is almost over? Gah, this year flew by! I wish I could say I spent the year doing a lot of riding and horse activities but sadly I have not. 🙁 Hopefully, 2020 will be my year to be getting lots of saddle time in again.

Normally, I get most of my riding in during Spring and Fall but not this year. Instead, I had to put Rumor on an Ulcer treatment because she had a bad flare up a couple months ago.

It felt like her symptoms happened over night but I’m sure that’s not the case. I just can’t pinpoint any signs prior to the “bad day”. That day though, whew, it was bad! It started out with her acting a little odd in the morning. She was eating but not much, drinking very little and exhibited colic symptoms; but, I could hear some noises in her belly. However, she wanted to stay laying down but thankfully wasn’t rolling.

I walked her around for a while and she pooped and wanted to eat grass again. Therefore, I figured she was good and if it was colic, it was over. WRONG!

I consulted with my vet all morning and decided against having them out. (Emergency visits aren’t cheap!) Plus my vet also thought she was probably fine since she did poop. She wasn’t 100% during the day but I figured that was just because she had a rough morning. However, by night time I knew something still wasn’t good. She was still wanting to lay down. She wasn’t drinking or eating and she acted as if she felt bad.

So at 9pm, the vet got a call to come out. When they showed up they did a few tests, all came back fine but she was very dehydrated at this point. So we decided to tube her with lots of water and electrolytes. That seemed to make her more comfortable for the night.

However, she didn’t drink anything all night and barely ate. So I knew we still weren’t out of the woods. While the vet was out, she mentioned she could have ulcers. So the next day I started her on the normal ulcer treatment people do, Ulcerguard. However, after a few days she did start to show some improvements but still wasn’t her normal self.

If you’ve ever had to treat ulcers, then you know ulcer medication for horses is extremely expensive! Now I’m not against spending money on things my horses need but when it’s possible to save some money and still treat the problem with proper meds, I’m all for it.

This ulcer treatment was actually recommended by my equine chiro. She had a few clients who recently had horses with ulcer problems and they tried this treatment and had lots of success. I did my own research and read many articles/forums where horse owners were doing this and getting good results. So I decided to give it a try too. Here’s how I treated Rumor this time.

Ulcer TreatmentNexium

  • 3 Nexium Pills for 30 Days
  • 2 Pills for 2 weeks
  • 1 Pill for 1 week
  • 1 Pill every other day for 10 days

Click here to buy on Amazon

We just completed the 30 day treatment and after about a week on the meds, she started to seem a lot better. After a couple weeks, I started to see even more improvement and at this point she is back to her normal self. I’m convinced this treatment works! I’m hoping by the time the treatment is done, the ulcer(s) will be healed and then the next hurdle is preventing them from coming back.

The last week that she’ll be on the meds, I plan to start her on some type of preventative med for ulcers. U-gard has good reviews, Smartpak ulcer med has good reviews, and I’ve been told Jeremiah’s Ulcer repulser works well. I haven’t decided which one yet, so if you have tried any of these, please let me know in the comments!

**Please note, I’m not a vet and if you’re horse is experiencing ulcer symptoms, you should consult with your vet this treatment or any other you choose to do.**

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