Hi,
I've read through the archives and joined the yahoo group for Cushings-IR horses. I'm hoping to hear any realt world feedback from owners who have battled through this. I have a 15yr old mare with lumpy fat deposits, a cresty neck, a prior case of suspected laminitis and repro issues.
I would love to implement the emergency diet from the Yahoo group, but I've got some hurdles. I am currently boarding my mare until I am settled into my farm (hopefully by the 1st of next year). I can move the mare to a dry lot and take her off her oat based grain mix. I can also pick which type of hay she's given - prairie hay or brome. The boarding farm is also willing to feed a supplement - I've read the Quiessence works good. I also see that SmartPak has a SmartControl IR option for these conditions. Does anyone have experience with using either of these?
I've read that blood tests are a bit iffy, especially this time of year for diagnosis - any suggestions for tests or is it better to just start my mare on the supplements and change her feed and if she improves it's a hit?
Also, the boarding farm is not willing to soak the hay twice a day. Unfortunately, it's 40 minutes away so it's not practical for me to drive out twice a day to soak her hay. Thoughts?
Sorry for so many questions, but I love this mare. She is probably the sweetest horse I've ever owned, or at least a close tie to my gentle giant TB I had. I'm also in love with her conformation and pedigree. Oh, and her head - wow! So, I'm hoping to bred her eventually, but for now the focus is on getting her health back on track.
Thanks in advance,
Stephanie
ssexton1@hotmail.com
www.sextonstables.com

I have an IR mare I've been managing for the past three years. You can email me at hrnarabians@yahoo.com if you have questions, need advice, etc. Happy to help.

I had a mare with cushings and was successful in treating her symptoms and keeping her mostly healthy for about 6 years. It is a frustrating condition! Since this mare had a history of laminitis already we chose not to so the blood work as the steroids used could have caused another episode - however she was unquestionable cushings with the crazy curly hair, fat deposits, poor immune system, slow wound healing etc. I did not like the information I read on peroglide, the main drug used to treat cushings. After doing a ton of research I treated her with Chaste Tree Berries (also known as Vitex). You can do a quick interenet seach and learn alot about the use of Chaste Tree Berries in Cushings. Emerald Valley had the best supplement or I just bought bags of the berries from Mountain Rose Herb. Since Cushings is usually realted to insulin resistance I also gave her a Tbs of Cinnamon 2x day to help balance out her sugar levels. I fed her a senior feed since it was the best I could find and recommended by my vet as low carb. She ate grass hay. To help with the fat deposits I gave her 400mg of Magnesium daily - just bought the human tabs at a vitamen store. I eventually developed an herbal mix for her I can pass along if your are intereted to help maintain her sugars and keep her immune system strong as possible. The failure of the immune system is the biggest challenge with cushings. Like diabetic people leg wounds simply won't heal without alot of work and they are super suseptible to all kinds of bugs and infections. My mare developed a cancer tumor in her sinuses that spread to her spinal column. Of couse the crazy coat - I lovingly called my girl the Wildebeast in the winter due to the LONG, curly shaggy hair. They will not shed so you will learn to become good at body clipping. I usually had to clip her at least 3 times a summer to keep her comfy. Also Cushings horses frequently consume more water and therefore urniate more - stall cleaning became a night mare with her. I learned to use the wood pellets in her bathroom corner and then layer shavings over them. Good luck keeping your girl going - it is a battle, but with a commitment one you can manage. Please email me if you have any other questions.

Amy

When we dealt with Cushings, we used Pergolide. It was expensive at the time, but now the cost is better. About $1 a day then.
The Pergolide had no side effects and his coat shed out....almost normal. We bodyclipped for show anyhow, but if he were not being shown, he would be comfortable in his natural coat. Even in our heat and humidity. We had a few laminitic episodes and some abcesses in the hooves, but no rotation of the coffin bone. With the high Cortisol levels, it raises the blood sugar, therefore the kidneys work harder to excrete it and makes them very thirsty. Hence the drinking a lot and urinating a lot.
We fed Senior feed and oats along with ground flax. Grass hay.
Dormant pastures (brown) are not a good place for them to graze. Dromant pastures store a lot of sugars in their leaves, so they can shoot up into green grass when it rains.
I hear a lot of good things about Chasteberry, but have never tried it myself.

Hi,

I have a 18yo sE Cushing's mare. Until this spring she was fine with a daily small dose of pergolide and her special diet, no grain, nearly no sugar, NO Grass.

Since April this year she is not doing so well. she had colics and diarhea now and then, then she had a laminitis fit in June and I am trying to improve on her consition ever since. She is really thin but slowly gaining weight. She is not in pain anymore now and mentally in a good stage but you never know how long it will last. It is a very frustrating desease and VERY expensive to treat once the laminitis bits start...

One advice: DON'T Breed her! I did, we managed to get her in foal after a few years unseccessfully trying - but because of the pergolide treatment she would have had no milk, the foal was born dead and we nearly lost the mare. Also, there is always the risk of a new laminitis fit with more weight on her. Try to do an ET if you can but don't let her carry out the foal.

You can always PM me if you need any more advice... I am in Germany.

Take care and all the best for your horse!
Bea

Bea,

Have you tried adding Chasteberry (chaste tree berry) to her diet? Some people find that it works better than pergolide or is used in addition to pergolide.

Hi Mckulley,

Yes I have a supplement for her that has chasteberry included (along with other minerals). It seems to do her good!

Thanks,
Bea

Sounds like textbook Cushings. I lost my favorite horse to the disease back in February, but I was able to keep her alive for TEN extra years thanks to an amazing farrier and pergolide (pergoloid mesylate suspension) It is actually intended for humans with Parkinsons but it works wonders on Cushingoids as well. You can only get it through a specialty prescription compounder and it must be kept refrigerated. My mare started on 5mL/day and worked her way up to 30mL a day for the last few years. It is pricey...about $500 a month for the large dose she was on but it gave me the extra years we deserved and when it was unkind to keep her alive we let her go. Everything that could be done was done, from therapeutic shoeing to the surgery to sever her suspensory tendon so the pedal bone counldn't rotate any more. When that failed it was time. I wish you the best with your horse. You have to really keep a close eye on the Cushingoids...they can't handle the heat and with the thick coats they require bodyclipping several times a year. The organs start to fail at the end but it's very evident when they are at the end. My very first horse was just diagnosed last month and it was a heartbreaking blow to know that I would have to go through this again but she IS responding well to her shoeing and pergolide after two months of really bad stuff. One more thing that really helped my mares is enteric bute (phsnybutazone in an enterolithic coating), manufactured by Horse Necessities. Another specialty product kept in the icebox. You can give 1-2 grams/day as needed and what's great about it is it it bute wrapped in omeprazole so you don't have to worry about giving regular bute which WILL cause ulcers. Ask me how many stalls I funded at LSU vet school on colics before I discovered this stuff...

We used the Permax (Pergolide) tablets. They were more stable than the suspension. I would put a tablet in a 3 cc syringe, fill it with warm water and shake it on the way out to the barn. By the time I walked out there, syringe it in the mouth and be done.

I recently spoke to a lady who has Cushings. This may sound off topic, but it was interesting to hear as the horses are unable to give their view! In our exchange of notes, she said it was diagnosed after an injury that wouldn't heal. The excess Cortisone released meant she never had aches or pains, and when her tumour was removed she complained of stiffness and aches- the doctor said this is what other sixty year old's feel like! While this is nice for our horses it could mean they are being over worked and just dont feel tired or sore and therefore give no indication of having done enough? Just a thought. I said that horses grew a very curly coat. She was very interested by this as she had once had dead straight hair which is now very curly- no doctor had ever mentioned that as a symptom (which could have lead to earlier detection!)
I would be interested to know if there is a link with colour- I have seen dozens of old grey ponies affected but never any bays or other colours?

quote name='fitch' date='Nov 3 2010, 06:21 PM' post='376880']
I recently spoke to a lady who has Cushings. This may sound off topic, but it was interesting to hear as the horses are unable to give their view! In our exchange of notes, she said it was diagnosed after an injury that wouldn't heal. The excess Cortisone released meant she never had aches or pains, and when her tumour was removed she complained of stiffness and aches- the doctor said this is what other sixty year old's feel like! While this is nice for our horses it could mean they are being over worked and just dont feel tired or sore and therefore give no indication of having done enough? Just a thought. I said that horses grew a very curly coat. She was very interested by this as she had once had dead straight hair which is now very curly- no doctor had ever mentioned that as a symptom (which could have lead to earlier detection!)
I would be interested to know if there is a link with colour- I have seen dozens of old grey ponies affected but never any bays or other colours?
[/quote]

Cushings in people is very different than Cushings in dogs and horses. It's an "old horse thing" and a genetic predisposition with age. I've known horses of every color with Cushings. I wish that feeling no pain was a part of it but the feet are excrutiating and with the muscle wasting and overall systemic decline it is just a God-awful disease. For years there was little research on Cushings but it is finally getting attention as our horses are able to live longer lives and are thereby more predisposed to the disease. It actually is genetic as well, so horses with disease should not be bred. I would have loved to have had a baby from my Saddlebred x SE (National Show Horse) mare when she was healthier but I couldn't take that chance.

Here is a picture of my mare in better times...This was at nationals in 2000, about a year or less after she was diagnosed with Cushings. I showed her up until about 3-4 years after that when she wasn't as competitive in English. She was always an awesome costume horse. I know it was her Egyptian dam that gifted her with such heart.

VC High Pockets (High Country x Bint Azeda)
Click to view attachment

This was our Cushings horse. He had active Cushings at this time. He was body clipped and we had a Certificate of Need on File with USEF. We also pulled the Pergolide several days in advance of competition.
PPID (Pituitary Pars Intermedia Dysfunction) is more accurate of a term than Cushings.

Dear VictoriArabian Farm,

Where do you get the knowledge from that it is genetic? As far as I know it is suspected it might be but there is not enough research done on this topic to really prove that.

I've always ready/heard Equine Cushings is more of an age related problem than a genetic problem. Also it is very different disease than human cushings. I do not know that I would want to breed a Cushings mare due to the increased risk of founder and infections

Actually, studies have shown that Arabians or the top three or five breed over all subject to IR.

I have a 11 year old mare of Polish, Russian, and American breeding. She was diagnosed as being IR about a month ago. I'm giving her 10 mg of Chromium Picolinate per day. Her thyroids are normal. We haven't done a Cushings test yet. She's on grass hay - bermuda, orchard, and timothy. I'm wondering what changes if any to make. I'm reluctant to put her on alfalfa. She gets ridden regularly but not hard because she has some issues from old injuries. I owned her mother and grandmother. Both of them had low thyroids and were on Thyro L. Both had to be put down due to laminitis in ther 20s. I think her grandmother was Cushings and I think her dam was just hypothyroid.

Has anyone used Chromium?

Please let me know the changes you've made for IR horses.

As more research is done, it appears that IR, Cushings, and hypothroid are related.

I'm going to talk to my vet about a Cushings test.

I love this mare as I did her mother and grandmother. I'd like to breed her to keep her lines going. I think I don't have too many more years left to breed her without risk. Her mother and grandmother both carried their foals to term and had no reproductive problems.

Dave

Dave,

Do not put this mare on alfalfa. She needs to be on a "carbohydrate safe" diet.

You may not want to "test" for cushings as the test itself can do more harm than good. Physical symptoms of cushings are easy to diagnose with out testing.

I'm aware that the cushings test can cause laminitis. I don't think she's a cushings horse. She sheds out nicely in the summer and she doesn't drink excessive amounts of water.

What would constitute a carbohydrate safe diet?

Dave

Many things can constitute a carb safe diet.

My biggest advice is to join the EquineCushings group in the Yahoo groups for in depth details on Insulin Resistance.

Cushings tests are available which do not involve the use of steroids and added risk of causing laminitis. Ask your vet about the test to measure endogenous ACTH, cortisol, insulin and glucose. (I think usually called ACTH/Insulin Combination test).
You can read more here: http://www.laminitis.org/cushings.html
and here: http://ahdc.vet.cornell.edu/endo/CushingsEquine.pdf
and here: http://www.thehorse.com/pdf/factsheets/cushings/cushings.pdf

My own Arabian mare diagnosed (by the ACTH test) with Cushings some years ago never had a long coat and did not drink excessively. She could not have pergolide as she also had a heart murmur. She was on a drug called trilustane (in her case, Modrenal) which although more expensive, worked best for her. She was also on Magnesium Chloride which helped enormously with the "stressy" behaviour than can be caused by the cushings. With the added help of a fantastic remedial farrier, & carefully controlled diet, she did really well for 4 years until the age of 24 when we finally lost the battle.

Good luck to anyone with IR or Cushings horses, it is really hard to deal with but there is a lot of information and help out there, as well as ongoing research.

IF it turns out that she has Cuhings - and I would definately TEST her for it, there are indeed safe tests that cause no harm - you should put her on Pergolide to make life more easy and less painful for her. As Cushings proceeds it is a very evil desease - especially with the laminitis fits that are to come. And I would definately NOT breed her then! My mare was on Pergolide and therefore developed no milk. If the foal would not have been born dead (which might also have been caused by the pergolide, nobody knows) she would have been a bottle baby. The mare nearly didn't survive this. In my opinion it is just not worth it. I can understand you would love to have a foal - I do as well - if you can afford it try to think about ET.

Bea

As an update to the post that started this thread, I have learned alot at the Yahoo Group for Cushings and Insulin Resistance (also called Equine Metabolic Syndrome). As some very basic info for readers, you can have IR without being Cushings and be Cushings without having IR - though many Cushings horses also develop IR.

My mare has the lumpy fat pockets, cresty neck but not the long/coarse/curly coat, not the excessive sweating or lack of sweating. After discussion with several vets and others who have much experience with Cushings and IR - we are treating her for IR as part of the diagnosis. Testing for IR is imperfect at best currently. If the treatment works to resolve her issues, we will consider that proof positive that she is IR and continue the treatment that works and tweak it as we go. If it doesn't resolve her issues, then we will re-evaluate and go from there.

For me, since I'm currently boarding my horses out, I was unable to follow many of the suggestions of the specialized Yahoo! group on the topic. But after great encouragement from Amanda and my vets, we have mapped a plan. She receives a very strict diet in both amount of food and what food she gets - 1.5% of her body weight in forage per day consisting of low quality hay. For me this means 3 flakes prairie hay and 1 flake of brome a day. (We weighed flakes to get this formula.)

Then, to address the suggested supplements and various vitamins, etc - she receives 1# twice a day of Nutrena LiteBalance, a grain feed formulated for IR type horses. Now, this met with alot of resistance on yahoo! but is one of those compromise deals for what my barn owner was willing to do for work to feed my horse each day! The LiteBalance appears rather bland and does not have the sweet smelling effect - the mice even seem to leave it alone. I liked it because it contains magnesium which I kept reading was a major factor in helping IR horses. This runs abour $15 per 40# bag in my area of Kansas.

She also gets 1# of ontario dehy timothy cubes twice a day. These are fomulated for IR horses as well and have received lots of endorsements over other types of timothy cubes, pellets, etc. This runs me about $10 per 50# bag in my area of Kansas.

Lastly, she gets roughly 2 tablespoons of chaste tree berry powder (aka vitex) per day. This cost me $12 for the bag and shipping and I have no idea how long it will last, but it looks like over a month at least.

We started the new feeding regimen on November 2nd at @ 1035# (per weight tape) and as of November 14 she was down to 938# (per weight tape). Now granted, the weight tape is nowhere near exact science, but if she's down again this weekend, I will consider it to be working. An appropriate weight for my mare would be around 800#. When she gets to that range - and hopefully loses the fat pads - if she is still losing weight, we will adjust the diet to include a little bit more of each component until we get her holding steady. She has a great winter coat (not excessive, it's comparable to the other horses at the barn) and while she's not so eager to get her feed anymore, she does eventually eat it all before the next feeding time comes around. (She's also not wild about her sugar free treats now.)

We go for a re-check at the vet in late December/early January to get the all clear for breeding. I have not found any research nor proof to show that IR is an inheritable trait or such a scourge on the horse to NOT breed her. I plan to try for an ET (g-d willing and pocketbook too!) but other than needing to manage her more closely and to remove her from the chaste tree berry (not safe for use in pregnant mares) - she is of good conformation, impeccable bloodlines and she is one of the prettiest and sweetest mares I've owned. I would not hesitate to breed her even if you guaranteed me the foal would be an IR horse too- I don't say this lightly, but it is proving to be a manageable issue, not a death sentence.

Stephanie

My mare is getting Chromiun Picolinate 10mg per day. I just started soaking her hay in water to leach out the soluable carbohydrates. I ride her 3 to 4 times pers week. It's difficult to keep this up with the shorter days. I'm thinking of trying a chromium/magnesium supplement. Any auggestions?

We're going to test for Cushings in the spring. My vet says the short days can lead to erroneous results.

How do I join the yahoo group?

Thanks,
Dave

Hi Dave,
Sent you a PM here this weekend with info and questions. If you'd like, I can share some of the info I found if you PM me at ssexton1@hotmail.com - alot will depend on your mare's history, etc.
Cheers,
Stephanie