For the record, I do not think I can save the world, nor do I think that the world needs saving from me and, finally not a single person reached out and asked me to be that very person assigned to make the world a better place. Not a single one...You see, I've been posting again... and, I don't mean the type of posting that is rhythmically timed to a horse's trot. In the spirit of confessions, I must say that I've been commenting on internet horse boards...
I wish I could tell you that I was congratulating someone on their most recent win, or helping them choose a name for their new horse and I would even be ok if I answered a question on whether or not the Black County saddle fits a narrow, high withered thoroughbred.
Nope! I was not doing that...
I guess I could redeem myself and say that it wasn't about politics, religion or sex (because those wouldn't be polite). Then again, maybe in the horse world it was the equivalent of talking about religion? We horse folks feel pretty passionate about our beliefs, our treatments, our feeding regiment and well, all thing horsey!
This past week I had my fill of opinions and surprisingly, they all came from me! In no special order, my horsey opinions (we would not have enough time or space to include all the gems I release into the world):Supplements
- Who is monitoring contraindications for all the supplements we use? I, for one, love good marketing... heck, I bought compression shorts in my basketball playing days because I was told (and convinced) that I would jump higher and run faster wearing them. But, compression shorts under basketball shorts might have looked cool, they did no harm to my body when combing the two.
- Are we giving our horses way too much of a good thing? I've seen some of your Smartpaks and I wonder, why all that?
- And are injectable joint meds causing some of these sudden deaths? One vet told me that during the season, I could give Sugar weekly injections of Adequan. I wondered, where are the studies looking at long term usage of these drugs.
Lyme
- Don't get me started on the diagnosis and treatment of lyme without validating test results.
- And, treatment with Doxy only works once. If the horse still has Lyme or "gets it again", Doxy does not work. The organism developed an immunity to Doxy when you treated it the first time. Any positive results are due to the anti-inflammatory affects which are a Doxy bonus.
- Treating with antibiotics should be carefully and completely done.
- There is no Lyme vaccine approved for horses at this time. Cornell is working on one but it is not available. Canine vaccine is not approved for horses and isn't 100% effective in dogs.
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| Should let sleeping dogs lie... |
- If you're going to post stuff on the internet as law. You know, this is true and I know it to be true. Dear god, check your sources. Be sure that the data you're using isn't 15 years old and is statistically invalid.
- Post them if you can... (I can for the above and when I have a moment, will.)
Note to self... just stop! No one wants to hear your ramblings... And, if you even read this... will you still "love" me? ;)
7 comments:
Haha! I think the questions you are asking are good ones and that you make very valid points. It seems like people get so set on what they've been told, that they don't do any research on the subject. Then they represent what they believe as facts instead of what it actually is, their opinion. No, I don't blame you at all for ranting.
Rant away.
Agree completely on over supplementation. Also think that many joint sups and also vet treatments for soundness issues are just completely unproven - show me the trials. Lots of treatments are popular and very lucrative for vets, but unproven.
Would pick a bone on doxy and Lyme. Horses are a dead end host for Lyme, and the organism does not reproduce in the horse. Therefore, the organism cannot develop resistance to doxy when horses are treated with it. Doxy may not work in certain horses if Lyme is well-established - the critters hide in cysts and it's hard for the meds to reach them (my vet used double dosing in PM instead of two times a day dosing to help with this problem). But it's not a matter of resistance.
PS - I never mind your ramblings - I'm prone to them myself.
Oooo, I must look that up! Thanks Kate! I would be delighted to be wrong. (And I love your ramblings too!)
I wasn't clear - development of resistance to an antibiotic requires sexual reproduction - this does not occur in the horse for Lyme since the horse is a dead-end host. The Lyme organisms may reproduce in the horse, but they're not reproducing sexually so resistance cannot develop. Sorry I was unclear.
I did the research and yes, the horse is a dead end host (meaning that they do not transfer the disease to another animal) and since the vector is the tick who dies after infecting the host, the use of antibiotics may not contribute to the overall antibiotic resistant organisms (like feeding general antibiotics to livestock and other bacterial infections that spread from host to host).
Within that host, if Lyme is not wiped out, further use of Doxy is useless because the remaining organisms are now resistant to the antibiotic that failed.
The remaining organisms survived the treatment because the developed a resistance to that treatment. Another antibiotic needs to be used (and so on).
Researching this was fascinating. There were studies being conducted now that are looking into when its best to treat Lyme... not all of the recent studies are rushing to treat at the first sign of infection (circle rash).
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