Re: legal meds for horse allergies

[VMAXEPT Roger Rittenhouse <vmaxept@cococo.net>]

We have a COPD horse- offical name for the condition-- also. My wife's
'new' CTR/slow endurance horse

We went thru the normal drugs to knock down the problems.. its a
bronchial dialataor and steriod.. all not allowed..in competiton -- and
they sure cant compete when they are hacking all the time..nor can they
breath well..

we did not have good luck -- so we aquired a  product from Canada
called Ventipulmin
(sp).. and the problem was knocked down in a week. We used only 1/2 a
bottle.

Then we put him on allegery shots.. took about 3  months to get him up
to a full normal dose. We had him at the Univ of TN for 2 days to get
all the tests run.. they made the allegin mix to match what he is
allergic to.. like pine trees.. we live in a pine forest.. nice..
wool corn clover... oh well..
but it worked --he is on his 20 day shot cycle and going fine and back
to work. Carol rode him for 3 hrs yesterday.. all gaits  up hills etc..
no hacking.
I also put him on a homepathic allergy remedy.. from Eq-Pathics.. I give
him a dose once a week.. and I have him on a high anti-oxident
fornulation from ABC..

He will be going back to competition next month. The allergy shots are
legal. and I dont worry about the homepathic remedy..
So you can fix the problem.. but he HAS to have the full skin reaction
tests.. not just a quick test .. and the test has to be done when they
are not under stress.
I really thought COPD meant the end of this horses usefull endurance
effort, but the great vets et-all at UT got him going again.

Roger