I agree with everything Heidi said.
However, I like the newly-approved selenium yeast as the oral supplement form
over the inorganic sodium selenite, I’ve had good luck with it in our
practice. Platinum Performance (www.platinumperformance.com) is
a good source to get it online. There are probably other sources of
various organic/inorganic percentages, I trust Platinum myself.
If you want to boost levels fairly
quickly, you can ask your vet to administer the injectable form, about 12 ccs, intramuscularly.
Any time I’ve treated horses with only the selenium, there have always
been side effects to one extent or another---mild colic symptoms, hives, elevated
heart rate, significant muscle soreness. So I like to premedicate with
flunixin meglamine (Banamine) IV at 1.1 mg/kg (this suggestion is for you to
pass on to your vet, not to try yourself), plus about 20 mg of dexamethasone
sodium phosphate IV maybe ten minutes before the selenium IM. I also put
just a squidge of dex into the same syringe as the selenium. Much better
results, no more worried calls from the owners after a treatment and I don’t
have to hang around for an hour waiting for bad things to materialize. Some
of the racetrack vets inject selenium IV, but a fair number also die from the
practice every year and there’s no clear advantage that outweighs the
risk, so I personally would *never*
do so, regardless of how low the serum assays was.
Anyway, JMO. Hope this helps.
Susan Garlinghouse, DVM, MS
From:
ridecamp-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ridecamp-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Mike & Kathy Kelly Sent: Wednesday, July 13, 2005
6:24 AM To: Ridecamp Subject: [RC] Selenium
I have reason to believe my
endurance horse has a Selenium deficiency (he is getting 4-5 mg total daily)
and I am having blood drawn for a serum analysis this weekend. It sounds
like it will be a few weeks before I get the results back, however.
In the mean time I'd like to start
supplementing with Se, my understanding is that up to 8mg daily is in the
"safe" range.
What is the best form of Se (most
bioavailable? Se yeast? or??
