Arthritis treatments

[qltrlori]

Today my 25 year old Sally was diagnosed with arthritis in her front right fetlock. The vet suggested a supplement for her - Platinum Performance Ortho-Chon. It is appx $60 for a one month supply and it looks like mostly herbs to me, which is fine, because that means I can probably buy the herbs on my own, and still help Sally be comfortable, and save myself some money.

Turns out that one of the top vets at my clinic founded Platinum Performance, which is of course why my vet, who I love, suggested this product.

So I would love to know what others give their arthritic horses.

Lori

[PattiB]

We used 100% dried yucca added to feed. We also used B/L which had Devils Claw but you can't use it on bred mares. Tried HA works on some but not all.

[pnalley]

I had one horse that I gave 100% pure yucca with great results. Yucca did not seem to help my others, I would start with the least expensive items & work my way up to whatever it takes to make your horse comfortable.

I am personally not afraid to give bute on a particularly bad day. Of course any meds are given under my vets supervision

[qltrlori]

Oh, forgot to say vet left me with a tube of bute for bad days.

Lori

[Abejita]

do you ride her? We have a 14 yr old gelding who was diagnosed w/arthritis in both front fetlocks,(I am guessing the hinds to but he wasnt x-rayed) with an OLD bone chip in one..(for those wonderig what the heck??I have my suspicions about his 'early training' causing some of these problems)we injected the joint and did a course of adequan and he is much better..so doing an injection if you can afford it may make her much more comfy also..Did he mention if this is a type of arthritis that will 'fuse' over time? If so then she will become less painful when that happens..

[Red Ryder]

MSM or MSM and glucosamine[??]
Did wonders for my stallion don't even use it now and no problems

[Sharon Leboffe]

We have been giving our 19 year old gelding, Canseco, Equinyl CM for 5 years now and BL granules for a year. He is doing very well. I would definitely recommend both products. Sharon L

[Carol D.]

I've been told by my vet that research supports a dose of at least 10,000 mg
Glucosamine/ day and to give it with Chondroitin. I've not used Platinum Performance, so not sure of the dosage, but I have heard that their products are good. I'm using Cosaquin Ultra, which is just the high dose glucosamine and chondroitin with a little ascorbic acid.

My mare needed an HA joint injection anyway last spring, but since then she's been fine on the oral supplements.

I am using a chinese herb called Jiaogulan and it does seem to help. It's an antioxident and I get it from a place called http://www.herbnhorse.com/ which has good prices for herbs. There's also a sister site http://www.herbalcom.com/.

[Carol Nelson]

I use a product called Devil's Claw Plus from SmartPak. It is devil's claw plus yucca. I buy it in 20 lb. buckets...cheaper that way. I have my two old ones on it, and I give a scoop of it per day to my horses in training, sort of like an aspirin. It combats pain and inflammation.
That is the most cost effective way I have found to treat arthritic horses. I also have my 22 year old mare with bad hocks on oral Hyluronic Acid (Hyalun), as Patti said. But yes, it does work on some and not on others...it just depends on the problem and so far it works wonderfully on her.
You can also get it in a 3 lb. container for just one horse.

[motorgypsy]

Start with MSM because it's so cheap and helps so many problems - from hooves to lungs - since it supports the growth of connective tissue.

Then the glucosamine/chondroitin together. We found a web source that sold the the pure stuff. Pure glucosamine is easy find (Jeffers Glucoasamine 99 or something like that) but the chondroitin is hard to find. I think the ration is 60/40 if I recall correctly but you can find it on Google. The two zip locs cost $100 each but they have lasted more than six months for our old mare. These two have been proven to help actually regrow cartilage.

The next thing is oral HA. It's about $90 for three months supply (longer for our mare since she's only about 650 pounds) and the price is dropping. I got mine from horsewarehouse but I think Jeffers has it at a reasonable price now. This is the same thing that is in the injectable Legend. This is the material that is naturally in the joint and it increases the liquid protection between the cartilages. Don't ask me how it knows where to go but it does.

The last thing you can do is be sure the horse is out 24/7 on a solid but not hard surface. Grass is great. Sand is fine too. Hard clay is not good. If you have nothing but hard clay you might create a sandy area or an area with shavings for the horse to hang out on.

Be very careful of Bute. It causes renal failure if used too much.

If the horse is really limping you might try DMSO on the area. It's a very powerful and innocuous anti inflammatory. Be sure the area is clean and dry before you apply and you might have to dilute the DMSO gel or liquid because it stings. I know because I used it on my face after I met the edge of the horse trailer door rather suddenly. It is quite amazing.

We all get arthritis. What matters is just how bad it is.

Yucca and Devil's claw are also recommended for menopause but I haven't read anything definitive about them being helpful for arthritis.

[Carol D.]

Good suggestions, Motorgypsy. I'll have to check out Jeffers. I know Ukele sells the pure glucosamine and chondroitin separately, but the latter is still pretty expensive.

My impression is that the Devils Claw and Yucca are an alternative pain reliever for arthritis, rather than a treatment, though I could be wrong.
Those are the ingredients in BL solution, which is supposedly a bute substitute. Horse Journal has had favorable reports on both Devils Claw Plus and BL solution in recent years but I believe was with regard to bute alternatives.

[Jane Hurl]

This was posted in another one of the forums, and I know it to be true:

I have a 19 year old gelding (Taz) that I had to stop riding last winter because of his arthritis. He was lumbering around and he was very stiff when he got up from laying down. He was not getting ridden enough and I was debating on finding him a new home as my vet told me that if I did not ride him daily he would continue to get worse, to the point of not functioning. Taz has a big pen 100 x 200 but he just is not a really active horse. We put him on joint supplements and had injections in his knees to keep him functioning, but he just continued to get worse. He lost a lot of rotation in his front left knee and was too sore to ride. His knee looked like it had a half a baseball sitting on it. This spring I read an article on feeding Apple Cider Vinegar (ACV) to horses with arthritis and I decided to try it. That stuff is amazing! With in a couple of weeks the swelling had gone down in Taz’s knees and I could see he was more comfortable. With in a month he was gaiting around his pen a bit. By August we were back riding him. We stopped giving him the joint supplement a month after we put him on ACV and he is still improving. The ACV did 10 times what the supplement did! This fall we took him on a 6 mile ride and other that being a bit out of shape he had no problems. If you do not believe me ask Jane... Taz is her favorite riding horse in the whole world and she can't believe what a turn around he has taken.

If you mare is starting to have problems with arthritis I would strongly recommend putting her on ACV. 1/4 cup mixed with a bit of grain every day works miracles! (By the way you do not have to add anything to it make it more palitable because the horses realy do like the taste.)