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Discussion on Repeated high worm counts despite worming | |
Author | Message |
Member: cathy33 |
Posted on Friday, Oct 5, 2012 - 5:18 am: Dr O,This is a continuation of the story of Harley, my 3 year old gelding who has the autoimmune condition, EPF. I have started a new post here rather than under skin condition as the latest problem with him relates to a high worm burden of predominantly strongyles. As background, I dedung the paddocks once or twice a day. Paddocks are also rested. All other horse's have had low worm counts for several years. Harley's 27 year old field companion has just come back with a "no eggs seen" count. Due to Harley's Pemphigus Foliaceus, my vet has always recommended not to worm unless necessary. He was diagnosed with PF April 2011. Since then he has been wormed last autumn for tapeworm, spring with 5day panacur equine guard, early summer strongid P (after first high worm count of 3200epg), mid summer eqvalan (after continued high worm count >2000). After the eqvalan, he had a worm count after 2 weeks with no eggs seen, again after 7 weeks, 700epg and again this week (Oct in th UK, ie Autumn) with result of 2600! One factor that maybe significant is that Harley has taken to eating his DrOppings! My vet says, however, that as I pick up the DrOppings so regularly, the eggs will not have had time to mature in to the larval stage before being reingested and that the reingested eggs should be killed off by the stomach acid? He is well supplemented with vits/mins so I don't think his diet is lacking. He lives out 24/7 with a companion in a stress free environment. He looks very well, a little pot bellied but I think this is a grass belly, and his DrOppings are normal. About a month ago, I took Harley off his long term steroids (dexamethasone for his PF) and put him on 4life Transfer Factor. So far there has been no reoccurrence of his PF and he looks very well apart from hoof cracks that seem to come and go. I am not sure if this is a PF symptom or related to his suppressed immunity after being on steroids fro 16 months. Your thoughts on the above would be greatly appreciated. I am worried that if I worm him again now, I will trigger a relapse before the Transfer Factor has really had a chance to work. I wondered whether there is some wormer resistance problem going on but then wouldn't I expect all the horse's worm counts to be higher? Many thanks for any advice anyone can give, Cathy |
Moderator: DrO |
Posted on Friday, Oct 5, 2012 - 8:06 am: Hello Cathy,I don't know of any work to suggest that 4life Transfer Factor would be of any benefit for PF. Indeed if 4life's claims of boosting the immune system are true (no work I know of supports this either) it would be the opposite of what you want as PF is a overactive immune system response. I do not know of any reason why deworming might be contraindicated for a PF horse. What does your vet say about this? DrO |
Member: cathy33 |
Posted on Friday, Oct 5, 2012 - 11:10 am: Thank you for your reply Dr O.Yes, I very much appreciate that there is no scientific proof at all that Transfer Factor works and that if it is marketed as a immune booster, why should it help horse's like Harley who already have an over-active immune system. There is much scepticism about it on the Internet which is why it has taken me 16months since diagnosis to try it! However, there have been well documented cases where horses who had PF symptoms equally as bad as Harley, have tried the the product after coming of steroids with PF symptoms at full strength. These horse's are now symptom free, one of these after 2 years. There may be many undocumented cases where the TF has had absolutely no effect, but I can't find these!! My feeling is that I have given the proven treatments a go, and indeed the steroids have helped Harley immensely but he is only 3 and I feel the long term side effects are not good. I also feel I owe it to him to try something less invasive. If the PF returns, then I can restart the steroids again. Re the worming, my vet wants to redo the fecal count as he finds it hard to believe Harley's worm burden is increasing by so much so quickly. I guess if it is confirmed to be so high, then I will have to worm him, probably with ivermectin again. I would like to add the tapeworm too but am not sure if the combined drug would knock him back too much. My vet is concerned that the effect of the wormer on dealing with the high worm burden may result on triggering his PF which would be a shame because he seems quite stable off the steroids at the moment. Any further comments would be greatly appreciated Cathy |
Moderator: DrO |
Posted on Sunday, Oct 7, 2012 - 5:38 pm: For more on Transfer Factor run a search on this site, we have discussed this product many times in the past but remember reasoning as you use above has been used to justify many medical practices for centuries that we know were bad.You know the parasites are harmful to your horse but the harm of deworming remains conjectural. DrO |
Moderator: DrO |
Posted on Wednesday, Oct 10, 2012 - 7:08 pm: Many ineffective and even some harmful treatments have been perpetuated for centuries on such evidence Cathy but I wish you continued PF remission in any case. A recent paper on a review of PF found that though the prognosis is usually guarded in older horses, but it is common for young horses to go into long term or permanent remission if the initial response to steroids is good (Londono and Tizard 2012).DrO |
Member: cathy33 |
Posted on Thursday, Oct 11, 2012 - 1:35 pm: Dr O,Thank you for your messages. I appreciate your feeling and caution about the use TF. I certainly won't be going out there and promoting the product. I believe it's up to individuals to review the literature ( I have read the articles on this website) and make their own decisions as to TF's benefits or otherwise. I must admit, your concern that TF may cause harm, is not one that I had considered. I would hate to think I was doing more damage than good. After all, I stopped the steroids in preference to TF, on the basis that long term use of steroids is quite toxic. One of the reasons I decided to try TF on Harley was that I first tried it on my dog, who suffered badly from skin allergy to grass. He was beside himself with the itching and scratched himself raw. I didn't want to go the steroid route with him so tried TF. Within a couple of weeks, he had stopped scratching, his skin healed and instead of red became more pink. He still has the odd itch but is so much more comfortable. Coincidence? Probably. Maybe the offending grass spores were no longer present. Who knows but it gave me the confidence to try it on Harley. I would be interested to see the new paper on PF I am aware that the prognosis for young horse's with PF is better than older ones. Harley did well on steroids but he did have a couple of relapses in the months after diagnosis, associated with stress. IF he does go in to remission, it may well be that he was going to anyway, without the use of TF. At the moment I still feel a long way from that happy outcome! I wormed him yesterday with Ivermectin and hope this won't trigger PF symptoms. If you could point me in the direction of that new paper, I would be very grateful. I googled it, but nothing came up Best wishes, Cathy |
Member: vickiann |
Posted on Thursday, Oct 11, 2012 - 8:20 pm: My Vet has "followed behind" (trying to heal the critically ill) other Vets who have prescribed this course of action, with disastrous results, in some cases.He is very much against using these products. A dear friend of mine ultimately had to put her beloved horse down after using this stuff, after which he never really recovered from what started out as a minor virus. |
Moderator: DrO |
Posted on Sunday, Oct 14, 2012 - 6:50 pm: The paper was published in a book Cathy and I don't have the time to transcribe. However the comments in the review were based on papers published in the literature that is summarized in PubMed. There is a button at the bottom of the PF article that should lead you to those summaries.DrO |