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HorseAdvice.com » Treatments and Medications for Horses » Antibiotics and Antimicrobials » Tetracycline, Oxytetracycline, & Doxycycline » |
Discussion on Asking your Vet for Doxy prescription? | |
Author | Message |
Member: teddyj1 |
Posted on Saturday, Nov 10, 2007 - 8:11 am: Hi Every one, do any of you have any experience getting your Vet to sign a prescription for Doxy to treat Lyme?I'm not entirely sure this is the treatment I really want to use, but you can order 500count 100mg tabs of Doxy from Smart Pak for $54.95 compared to $500 from the Vet, and seeing that my horse would need closer to 1,000 pills at a cost of $800+ it just doesn't make sense to pay such outrageously high mark up for an illness that 1) may or may not be the true cause of his "irregularity" 2) a disease that is so endemic to our area that he will surely become re-infected in the next few years and need re treatment What have any of you done in approaching your Vet for a prescription, and any of you that have gone the IV OXY TET protocol, what where your results, how many years have you gone with out needing re treatment, etc... Thanks so much all of you, I'm really trying to decide where my money is being spent the most wisely in all of this. TOD |
New Member: 2chance |
Posted on Saturday, Nov 10, 2007 - 9:51 pm: My sympathy to you with your Lyme diagnosis. I am in Connecticut and own a barn with 40 horses (most of them are boarders). I seem to always have at least one horse in the barn on doxycyline for Lyme.My vet was very willing to give me a prescription for Doxycycline. I was able to buy the Doxy for about $45 per bottle. I think that Lyme is so common in our area that the vets realize what a financial burden this is for horse owners who, as you say, are likely to have to re-treat their horses periodically because of re-infection or seemingly chronic Lyme disease. One of my own horses had a 10,000 titer, very positive Western Blot last Spring. We treated her with doxycyline for 6 weeks. Her symptoms were very touchy twitchy skin, crankiness, stiffness in her hind legs, lethargy, compromised immune system - skin things that took much longer than normal to heal, a fever now and then and spells of rapid breathing while at rest. She responded to the doxycyline treatment- most of her symptoms resolved, but after a few months seemed not quite right again. I retested her in August and her titer and Western Blot were exactly the same as when we started. She was then put on two weeks of IV tetracycline followed by two more weeks of doxycyline. That was finished as of September 6th. I am starting to get that "not quite right" feeling again. I will retest her again at the end of November. I hope I'm wrong but I think the Lyme will still be with us. Other horses in my barn have had different symptoms that occurred with Lyme Disease. In February, one horse developed laminitis from out of nowhere and was found to have a 10,000 titer with a very positive Western blot. He suffered some rotation, but made an amazing recovery with no recurrences of laminitis after being treated with 6 weeks of doxycycline. Other horses have had very sore backs and extreme nervousness. In most horses that we have treated the symptoms resolved with treatment. I mean no disrespect to Dr. O, but all of the vets in my area of Southern Connecticut take Lyme very seriously and are convinced that it does cause many of the above-mentioned symptoms. It is easy to blame Lyme disease for many unrelated conditions - especially lamenesses and training problems. However, I have seen enough real recoveries after treatment where I am convinced that Lyme is a real cause of health problems in horses. |
Moderator: DrO |
Posted on Sunday, Nov 11, 2007 - 7:14 am: Welcome Lucy,No disrespect taken. Hopefully there will be continued research on this subject until this is better understood disease principle in horses. It is important to remember that up to this point both direct studies of trying to infect horses and large epidemiological surveys of areas where Lymes is endemic neither find significant disease attributable to this organism in horses. Again I would point out the weakness of simple observation as proof of causal relationship. I have seen a whole multi-county community go crazy over a disease that it turns out was never present: we heard of dozens if not of hundreds of successes from veterinarians in treating a disease that once more accurate testing came out it turns out was never here. Back when EPM was thought to be diagnosed by a blood test hundreds of horses went through successful treatment that in retrospect had nothing to do with EPM. Horses often get sick and often get well, it can be very difficult sometimes for us to understand clearly what part we are playing in the process. DrO |
Moderator: DrO |
Posted on Sunday, Nov 11, 2007 - 7:18 am: TOD, in our practice we gladly give prescriptions for medications though in the small animal hospital they do charge a 15 dollar fee to cover the time involved.DrO |
Member: teddyj1 |
Posted on Sunday, Nov 11, 2007 - 7:54 pm: Lucy, Dr. O' thanks again for the input.I've decided to treat with IV OXY Tet. After reading every article ever written on Lyme (LOL), and of course discussing ad nauseum with my friend with a chronic mare, along with the escalating ELISA(2004=640,2006=2,560,2007=20,000+) and Western Blots(Very Positive) over the past 3 years, which incidentally coincide with the same time frame my gelding was shipped from Florida to Connecticut and then with in a months time of coming to CT, really started to have all of the inconsistency. We did attempt to treat for Lyme last year, but in retrospect the choice of using Doxy, and for only 30 days would not have been enough to eradicate the organism from his system any way, so live and learn. I am going to ask my Vet to consider allowing me to treat him at home and not at the clinic, as my friend's mare just finished her second IV Oxy Tet treatment from home in the past 3 years, so we are more than competent at administering the meds, and flushing the catheter line. Hopefully we won't have too many kinks in the catheter along the way, and by next spring he'll finally be a happy consistent horse. Not to worry Dr. O' I'm keeping my mind very open to all possibilities, but I guess since his Lyme has never been treated in the manner prescribed by Dr. Divers and Dr. Chang at Cornell I feel I owe the horse the benefit of the doubt. We'll see what happens... TOD |
New Member: petersdr |
Posted on Monday, Nov 12, 2007 - 12:06 pm: In regards to wanting to go outside your vet for the script - you might check with your State Vet Board and/or State regulations. In Maryland, for instance, the law states that vets have to provide a prescription upon request (they can charge whatever they want for a prescription fee, though!).Here is a link to a list of states and whether or not vets are required to provide a script (25 are): https://members.verizon.net/~vze2r6qt/supplies/legal.htm |
Member: teddyj1 |
Posted on Monday, Nov 12, 2007 - 2:18 pm: Thanks Erin, this sis good to know, especially for things like Adequan, ledgend, etc...It's certainly not that I want to take business away from my Vet, it's just that with certain treatments, that need constant re-treatment, or the mark-up means the difference in the treatment itself, some times you just have to go out side. Back home I attended UF's Equine Science program back in the early 80's and was friends with several Vets, but having married and moved away, I've since lost touch with Vet's that would have "helped soften the blow". |