Information if you have a horse with Cushings, please?

Hi there! I have a 24 year old mare (Tennessee Walker) and an 18 year old mare (Appaloosa) with cushings!

Do they get better:

- cushings is life long, but you can make changes to keep the symptoms at bay.

what I do:

- well, sugar and natural sugars make it flare up so:

- don't feed treats.. as sad as it is, but there are special healthy treats meant for the disease

- soak their hay (put it in a hay net) and let it soak for about 30 minutes, it breaks down A LOT of the sugars in their hay

- don't feed grain, or feed very low sugar grain (also, there are special made grains for this)

- don't let them in a pasture to eat grass very often

- take rocks out of their pasture

- my mares pasture is flat, no rocks, no/VERY little grass, a layer of sand

Drug:

- I have not heard any drug like you are describing..

- what I have heard (and use) is Pergolide, it is an oral medication fed daily that is in apple and peppermint flavor, they both HATE the peppermint one... it isn't that expensive, from on company I think it was $40 for a container, and $15 for a more concentrated container from another company. (I use the cheaper one)

"Also are there any downsides such as side effects?"

- none that I have seen..

"Has the drug returned your horse to normal?"

- not normal, but close to.

- one of them hadn't shed out for about 4 years (one of the signs of the disease), one she started the medicine she finally shed out after about 3 weeks!!!

"Does it require larger and larger doses as the disease progresses or does it stop progression?"

- I have not fed larger doses, it "pauses" and sort of "neutralizes" the disease once they are one it

Good luck!

Edit To Add:

- in the simplest of terms, cushings for horses is an insulin problem; basically diabetes for horses, but when horses have a flare up their laminates (part that keeps the hooves attached) could rotate being INCREDIBLY uncomfortable.

Good luck!

I have a 31 year old pony that's been living with Cushing's Disease for at least 13 years. He looks and feels great! My son still uses him for Pony Club mounted games, and an occasional trail ride.

The new drug is Prascend. It's a form of Pergolide. My pony has been on it for about a year or 18 months. Before that he was on pergolide. It is rather expensive. You'll also have to have annual blood tests to make sure you're still giving the right dose. I have seen no side effects from this drug at all. I wouldn't say it controls ALL the symptoms, but it does control some, and lessens the others. It has controlled the excessive drinking/urination completely. It has not controlled the fact that my pony gets too heavy of a coat for the summer, but that's fixed with clipping (he does shed out in the spring but gets a super thick "summer" coat to replace it). I feed him Triple Crown Senior, which has a low NSC (starch) level.

I would say my pony has not been affected by having Cushings at all, as long as I keep him clipped in the summer. He does have some special management issues, but those are due to him being old and missing a lot of molars, not due to Cushings.

This is off the track some, but I had a dog with Cushings, years ago. There was no treatment at that time, so I kept her while the disease progressed. She was O.K., except drank and urinated a lot, and lost some of her hair. One day, she stopped eating, which is a sign the end is now. So, I had her euthanized at my Vets. Two years later, they came out with pills to treat it - they slow it down, but there is no cure.

1

There is a lot of stuff on the internet that is basically fat-shaming diabetics for causing their own diabetes with their bad diet and lack of exercise and general lack of moral fibre. A lot of this stuff is written by non-doctors, often with a supplement or diet or training plan to sell that they claim will completely cure diabetes if only people stick to it.

I read this interesting book https://tr.im/jylFQ that gave me a lot of useful tips about my disease and also a different perspective on the best therapeutical approach. I think you should read it too.

Cushing's in horses results from development of a benign tumor affecting a portion of the pituitary gland in the brain that affects serotonin and alters secretion of certain hormones, especially the corticosteroids of the adrenal glands. There is no cure but the progression can be slowed or seemingly halted in some horses. One gelding I owned never progressed beyond the initial development of a slight neck crest (which was the sign that led me to having him evaluated) after I initiated changes in his diet and lifestyle, while other horses may respond differently.

Management includes careful restriction of water soluble carbohydrates (starches fructans glucose) by eliminating cereal grains from the diet, providing low starch low glycemic index commercial feeds, managing grazing to reduce fructan and starch consumption, and soaking hay before feeding to reduce water soluble carbohydrate content. A low stress lifestyle is best, which helps to keep the corticosteroid hormone levels under control. Ample turnout and socialization is beneficial, but with dietary restrictions also being managed as needed. Careful management of deworming, vaccinations regular hoof trimming and maintenance, dental work, etc. are all important factors in slowing the progression of PPID.

The only FDA approved pergolide mesylate tablet is marketed under the brand name of Prascend and is approved only for treatment of clinical signs associated with pituitary pars intermedia dysfunction (PPID, or equine Cushing's disease).

Years prior to the current FDA approved Prascend, pergolide had been withdrawn from the human market due to serious risk of damage to human patients' heart valves. After that, pergolide compounding for equine PPID was permitted by the FDA as the only available option at the time and until a new equine drug application reached approval for that use. This occurred in 2011 after clinical trials in horses were completed. FDA approval means that the product has been evaluated for safety and efficacy and that the drug has met FDA production standards to preserve the identity, strength, quality, purity, and consistency of the product from one batch to the next. It also assures that the product has demonstrated stability and effectiveness over time through a variety of environmental conditions.

Because the FDA has approved Prascend, it is no longer legal for a vet to prescribe an unregulated pergolide product available from a compounding pharmacy. The effort and investment to produce and license a high quality, carefully packaged, stable product that is produced under carefully regulated conditions has not happened with these compounded products. They are often unstable and some have been found to contain either insufficient amounts of pergolide or none at all, and they can vary widely in consistency.

Labeling found on unregulated pergolide products can be pure fiction because the FDA protection is not there, and for that reason I would never under any circumstance recommend using any pergolide preparation other than Prascend. These knockoffs are not generic versions of FDA approved Prascend which would require them to be identical to the Brand name product and subject to FDA approval and regulation.

So far, smaller doses of Prascend have proven to be more effective than large doses of the compounded products that have been used in the past.

********************************************

This is the drug information on Prascend that you should read thoroughly in order to discuss it with your vet to make an informed decison on whether or not to try it ......................

http://dailymed.nlm.nih.gov/dailymed/drugInfo.cfm?...

************************************

Add........................ The experiences of individuals who have only used compounded knockoffs and have never administered FDA approved Prascend are irrelevent since the compounded unregulated products those horses received do not compare to Prascend, and the responses to treatment with those products cannot be compared to the response to treatment with Prascend.