Re: strokes & bute usage

[Karen Allnutt <allnutt@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu>]

 >
>Date: Fri, 2 Jan 1998 08:20:50 -0800
>From: "Dorothy Beebe" <dbeebe@plumas.ca.us>
>To: <ridecamp@endurance.net>
>Subject: Stroke & Bute
>Message-ID: <19980102163257196.AAC237.154@pcda>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
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>
>I'm posting this for a friend--She's looking for help and opinions....
>
>She has an older (30+ I think) gelding named Dan.  In 1994 she had her
>horse checked out by a vet at UCD after being told by her local vet that he
>had had a stroke.  The UCD vet thought that Dan had some sort of
>"neurological" problem, but says that a stroke is very unusual in horses.
>
>Her questions, though, mainly concern bute.  Her horse is taking 1/2 gram a
>day, and has been for several years.  She's weaned him down that far, but
>can't seem to get him off of it all together, as the symptoms from the
>"stroke" reoccur.  She's concerned about having him on this for so long and
>doesn't want to cause any more problems with his health.
>
>Have any of you had experience with long term bute usage?  Or any
>suggestions about things she could be doing to minimize any damage it may
>cause?
>
>dorothy & elly
>taylorsville, ca
>
I had an older mare that probably had a stroke at 35, died at 39.  We did
not use bute for the stroke, although bute had been used for navicular
earlier in her life.  Anyway the other older mare had used bute a lot in
her younger life and it was my understanding that chronic bute use
contributed to her liver failure (she died at 29).  I am not a vet or a
pathologist, but it is my understanding that regular/chronic bute use
causes liver damage.  I don't think there is anything other than not using
bute that 'corrects' the damage.  What are the symptoms that your friend is
trying to correct with bute?  My mare who had the stroke had partial
paralysis on one side of her body that corrected itself in about 2 weeks.
She was alert, eating, drinking, ambulating.  If she had been in obvious
pain or unable to eat, drink or move I would have euthanized her.  As it
was she lived for another 4 years.

KcA & Rose (who misses the teasing the old ladies) & Archie (who is
surrounded by females - sheep, a goat & Rose and who never knew the old
ladies)