This message is from: Amy Goodloe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
At 10:05 AM -0400 6/15/05, Sam & Sue Banks wrote:
According to what I have read, the bute will cause stomach ulcers more commonly at higher doses and the longer it sits in the stomach. The best way to use bute is to give it to the horse on an empty stomach (with a small amount of grain is OK, which we aren't going to do with our possible laminitic horse) and wait 1 hour before feeding any hay. Hay must stay in the stomach longer to digest, and the bute will bind with the hay and therefore sit in the stomach longer, causing the ulcers.
This is interesting. Do you remember where you read this, so I can follow up on it?
I have a couple of horses that need bute periodically to manage soundness problems and I've been giving it to them just before feeding them their evening hay, on the theory that having food in the stomach will buffer the bute, just as it does for a human who wants to take an Advil. I can't take Advil on an empty stomach any more after the damage caused by doing so for many years. I have to eat a full meal about thirty minutes after taking the Advil if I want to do so without additional suffering!
I know that bute is not the same drug as ibuprofen, but it seems like the recommendation for most human drugs that cause stomach upset is to take them on a full stomach. Maybe a horse's stomach is just too different to make the comparison?
My guess is that horses probably suffer from gastric irritation problems long before things get bad enough for them to develop an ulcer. But I suppose it would be hard to measure something like heartburn in a horse, b/c you can't see it like you can see an ulcer. And so far it's too hard (or too expensive) to treat, although I would've thought that having food in the stomach would be a good idea. But maybe not!
--Amy G.
