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Re: [RC] 1. Bute for colic? 2. 'Compunded dipyrone?' - heidi1. Has anyone ever heard or taken part in giving Bute for a colic? I was under the impression that Bute should not be given to a deyhdrated horse based on various articles that I've read over time. Recently, a local vet prescribed (over the phone) 2 tablets of Bute for what was determined to be a mild colic case by the owner (no, it's not me) and the vet. I have never heard of giving Bute for colic and to me it sounds like taking an aspirin for a stomach ache. However, if it works... how exactly does it help in a colic case? I also figured that if Bute worked for colic cases, vets would have been prescribing that for years (long before Dipyrone was taken off the market) First off, bute is a painkiller (antiinflamatory) and colic is pain. No, Bute would not be my drug of choice for a colic, but if I was stuck in the back hills 40 miles from nowhere and had a horse with a gas colic, and had a couple of Bute tabs in my pocket, then yes, I'd likely give it. It is not as effective against gut pain as Banamine or dipyrone or some other drugs, but it isn't totally ineffective, either. And in a handful of cases, I've topped off a horse with some bute that already had Banamine on board (in the days before we had Dormosedan) to get it under control enough to ship to a surgical facility. In this case, I suspect since the vet had the owner on the phone, perhaps bute was what the owner had available and the vet figured it was worth a try. 2. Speaking of Dipyrone....the vet also mentioned that he had found a place where he could get "compounded Dipyrone". Has anyone ever heard of that? Is that safe? "Compounders" are pharmacies that market specific "niche" drugs that don't have enough uses for a regular company to put a label on them and sell them. "Taken off the market" can have a lot of connotations--some drugs are "off the market" because they are dangerous, others are "off the market" because they weren't selling well, and some are somewhere in between--ie they may be dangerous in one useage but may have other valid uses that won't sustain a market. Example--nitrofurazones used to be used as oral antibiotics for hogs, but there were problems with meat residues. So they were taken "off the market." You can still buy them commercially as wound dressings in an ointment form, but one of the forms that was marketed as an oral hog antibiotic was a liquid suspension that also worked dandy as an intrauterine antibiotic for postpartum mares, because it was broad spectrum and far gentler on the tissues than gentocin or some of its commonly used relatives. So when it went "off the market" as a hog drug, an equine veterinarian could still go to a veterinary compounder and have the liquid suspension made up as a custom order. But--being "off the market" as an oral hog drug is a great big neon warning sign that it had better not be used to treat diarrhea in hogs that will eventually be going to market! So in answer to your question of "is it safe," yes, it is exactly the same thing that dipyrone ever was, and is as safe as it ever was. I never used much dipyrone so am not particularly conversant with its pros and cons, but it will be the same stuff coming from a compounder as it was coming from a major pharaceutical manufacturer. Heidi ============================================================ Common sense should also be a part of the decision making process. If you see someone who doesn't have any, hand them your tool box. ~ Lisa Salas - The Odd Farm ridecamp.net information: http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/ ============================================================
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