Gastric Ulcer Syndrome

Your Horse's Well Kept Secret Revealed

There is a challenge in working on horses in accurately identifying your horses pain. Nowhere is this truer than with Gastric Ulcer Syndrome (GUS).  It is an  inflammatory process but there is no heat you can feel with your hand. It is a type of tissue injury but you can’t see it. It is not something    that feels “off” when you  ride. Chances are you may not see any clear signs at all. The discovery of the    prevalence of ulcer syndrome surprised  even the veterinary profession. In a multiple  studies it was    consistently found that more than 50% of performance horses  tested had some form of ulcerative    disease. 

            In foals, gastric ulcers are more often deadly than in adult horses, but the hidden aspect of this   condition allows  pain and the degeneration of overall health to progress, robbing your horse of    performance, bloom and quality of life.  Many  factors can increase a horses’ risk for developing GUS and  many of them are common management and training  practices.

            Most horses identified with GUS lived in stalls or small pens. Confinement for the majority of a 24 hour period,  receiving feed in two large   meals as opposed to a natural grazing pattern (see article on page 3), traveling to competitions or any disruption in routine can  significantly    contribute to GUS. So will a recent illness or injury. These are all stressors that may reveal themselves only on the inside where we will not see    them.  Medications are well known to lead to GUS if they are used long term, misused or if your horse is particularly sensitive to them.  Anti-inflammatories such as Phenylbutazone or “Bute” are of particular concern in this respect. 

                        The only definitive method of diagnosing Gastric Ulcer Syndrome is to perform an endoscopic examination that gives your veterinarian a direct, live view of your horses’ stomach lining. Today's gastric endoscopes come equipped with very powerful miniaturized cameras. Smaller than a regular stomach tube (such) as those that your veterinarian uses to tube oil and fluids to a colicy horse)  the “scope” is passed from your horses nostrils directly into the stomach. The live image of your horses’ stomach lining is displayed in color on a television screen. External controls allow the veterinarian to rotate the camera in all directions and examine an area from the esophagus through the entire stomach lining to the  small intestine for signs of ulceration, inflammation and other abnormalities.  Once diagnosed, the news is there are a variety of treatment options. Perhaps the most important measure you can take is to address stress in your horses’ life and daily routine. If signs of GUS are present, there are very effective medications such as Merial’s “Gastroguard”. This medication has shown to produce healing in over 97% of horses diagnosed with some form of GUS.   For more information on how to treat or more importantly prevent ulcers, visit Merials website, www.ulcergard.com