Wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!
please have the answering service representative page Kendyl ~ 508-923-3422
Something we are thankful for: our clients and their fabulous horses! Wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving! The office will be closed Thursday and Friday. If you have an emergency or urgent situation,
please have the answering service representative page Kendyl ~ 508-923-3422
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Adequan is back! We figured we would get everyone on the same page about the Adequan i.m. 1/4/7 protocol before all of the prescription requests and questions start up again! Adequan i.m. (Polysulfated Glycosaminoglycan) 1/4/7 is an intramuscular injectable solution. It is currently the only FDA approved disease modifying osteoarthritis drug for the treatment of non-infectious degenerative joint disease. According to their web-site, Adequan i.m. alleviates pain, stops the joint disease cycle, decreases inflammation, restores synovial lubrication, blocks destructive enzymes, reverses traumatic joint dysfunction, and stimulates cartilage repair. For those of you wondering what the i.m. and 1/4/7 means after the word Adequan: The i.m. stands for intramuscular and is how the drug is administered to the horse, as an intramuscular injection in the neck. The 1/4/7 refers to the recommended treatment directions – Give one vial (1) every four (4) days for a total of seven (7) treatments. Just to make things extra confusing, veterinarians are now changing the way they had been prescribing Adequan i.m. for horses! Old Directions: Give 1 vial (5cc) IM once every four days for a total of seven treatments, then 1 vial (5cc) IM once or twice per month or as directed. New Directions: Give 1 vial (5cc) IM once every four days for a total of seven treatments. Retreat with the full 1/4/7 treatment series as needed and as prescribed by your veterinarian. According to their web-site, this seven treatment series is the optimal dosage to give the maximum benefit for your horse. In most cases, this full 1/4/7 treatment series can then be repeated yearly. In some cases, the full 1/4/7 treatment series may need to be repeated more often depending on the severity of each case, horse history, and other factors defined by your veterinarian. Whether given once per year, or twice per year, or however often your vet prescribes, with the new directions, the monthly or every other month dose of one vial (5cc) of Adequan i.m. is stopped altogether. Most clients and experts in the industry have found that administering Adequan i.m. once or twice per month after the initial 1/4/7 treatment really has no additional benefit to the horse. The new directions are just as effective as the old directions, but have many benefits for your wallet! For more information about Adequan i.m. --> www.adequan.com To check out some Adequan clinical studies --> http://www.adequan.com/clinical_studies.aspx More information about once a month vs. 1/4/7 --> http://adequan.com/once-a-month.aspx What days do I give the shots on? Look here for a sample calendar --> http://adequan.com/once-a-month.aspx **When placing an order for Adequan i.m., don't forget to order needles and syringes too! To talk to Kendyl to see if Adequan i.m. would be a good fit for your horse, contact us! 508-923-3422 Your horse’s vital signs are a very important resource for you and your vet! Knowing how to take them and knowing what is “normal” can be very helpful information, especially when dealing with a sick horse or in an emergency situation.
Temperature Adult Horse: 99°F – 101°F Foal: 100°F – 102°F How do I take the temperature? The horse’s temperature is taken rectally. You can use a digital thermometer or traditional mercury thermometer. Digital thermometers tend to be faster – which can be helpful when poking around the hind end of a horse that is not feeling well. When using traditional mercury thermometers, you need to make sure that it stays in the rectum for at least 3 minutes to get an accurate reading. If you are unable to hold onto the thermometer for the entire time, you should make sure that the thermometer has a string attached to it so the thermometer can be tied to the tail so it won’t get “lost.” Gums The gums should be pink in color and moist to the touch. If they are abnormal in color (white, red, purple or yellow) please call your vet as soon as possible! This is also where you can check out your horse’s capillary refill time. How do I look at their gums? Lift up the top lip of your horse and check all areas above the teeth. How do I find or figure out the capillary refill time? After lifting up your horse’s top lip, take your index finger and press on your horses gums above their teeth. When you remove your finger from their gums, you will be able to see a color change exactly underneath where your finger was. It should take less than 2 seconds for the gums to go back to “normal” color after you lift your finger. Heart Rate Adult Horse: 30-40 beats per minute Foal: 60-110 beats per minute How do I find the heart rate? There are a couple of ways to find your horse’s heart rate: 1) Listen with a stethoscope behind the left elbow on the girth area, or 2) Feel for a pulse on the lower jaw bone (lingual artery). For both ways, count the number of beats for 15 seconds, then multiply that number by 4. Respiration Rate Adult Horse: 8-16 breaths per minute Foal: 25-60 breaths per minute How do I find the respiration rate? There are a couple of ways to figure out your horse’s respiration rate. The two easiest and fastest ways are: 1) Watch the flank move in and out (in and out equals one breath), watch the nostrils flare in and out (in and out equals one breath). Gut Sounds A healthy horse gut is usually making some sort of noise! How do I listen to their gut? With a stethoscope (or your ear), listen to their abdomen on both sides, top and bottom. You should hear all sorts of sounds: gurgling, growls, tinkling, roaring, etc. Long periods of silence or no sounds at all can mean that there is a lack of movement in the gut that can lead to or indicate colic. Hydration A simple “pinch test” can be performed on your horse’s neck to see if your horse is hydrated or dehydrated. How do I perform a pinch test? Simply, pinch the skin on the neck near their shoulder. If their skin goes back to normal within 2 seconds, the horse is hydrated. If the skin stays “pinched” or raised for longer than 2 seconds, they are dehydrated. Digital Pulse The digital pulse is used to tell if there are issues directly related to the hoof or lower extremities. In a normal or healthy horse, the digital pulse is usually very faint and in some cases very hard to even find. The cause for concern is when you can clearly feel and easily find a digital pulse as this usually means that there is an issue. If there is a bounding digital pulse in one leg, then the issue may be isolated to that one area. If the digital pulse can be felt in more than one leg, then the issue may be systemic. How do I find the digital pulse? The digital pulse can be found on all four legs, near the fetlock. It can be very hard to feel so practice or feeling for it routinely can help you know the horses “normal” digital pulse. In most horses there is a groove running down the outside of their pastern (in between the coronet band and fetlock). This groove contains the artery you will feel for. As mentioned above, if the digital pulse can be easily found and is bounding, then there is most likely an issue. Take Home Message Vital signs are very helpful tools and should be one of the first things evaluated if there are any concerns. Be sure to have a thermometer, stethoscope, and emergency phone numbers readily available in your barn. If your gut instinct is to call the vet … call the vet! Also, do not administer any medications to your horse without consulting your veterinarian first! Administering medications can alter your horse’s vital signs and mask the immediate medical issue making it harder to diagnose or treat. Posted by BethJFitz Many of you have had questions about how to access your horse's coggins. Hopefully this will help answer some of your questions! For the past 3 years we have been issuing digital coggins for our clients through Global Vet Link. The benefits for you are: 1) you can access your coggins absolutely anytime, 2) you can print off as many copies as you need to send to shows, clinics, etc., 3) you can e-mail copies of your results to farm managers, transporters, or anyone that needs a copy, and 4) the results are available to you much faster than with the old-school carbon-copy paper coggins because we don’t have to wait for mail service from the lab to us and then from us to you. For those of you that have used Global Vet Link BEFORE, please be sure to use the SAME user name and password as you have used in previous years! If you cannot remember your username and/or password, there are buttons under the log-in area for “forgot username” and “forgot password” to help reset your information, or contact Global Vet Link directly at 515-817-5704. If you have accidentally set up more than one account, please contact Global Vet Link directly to help you. They have even more magical powers than Beth has in the office and can get you back down to one account. If you are new to Global Vet Link, setting up your account is easy! Go to www.MyVetLink.com for information about how everything works! There are directions and tutorials about how to set up your account on their website. We also have a step-by-step account set-up guide available on our Highland Hill web-site www.highlandhillvet.com (on our FAQ page and also at the bottom of this post). When setting up your account, be sure to use the e-mail address you gave to Kendyl or gave to the office as this is how we link you coggins results to your Global Vet Link account. If you never gave us an e-mail address, let us know what your e-mail address is so we can enter it in the system. Once you have set up your account, your coggins will be posted in your account for you to view, print, or e-mail to someone else. If you have multiple coggins or certificates in your account, make sure you print off the most recent results or certificate. If you own more than one horse, all of your horses results will be posted in your account. A known issue for Apple product users … when printing the coggins, you need to make sure that the PDF file opens using an Adobe Reader app. If you open the coggins with the default (non-Adobe Reader) product, the signatures will not show up and will not print. If you are using an iPhone or iPad, Adobe Reader has a FREE app available to download. If you are using a Mac computer, please follow these directions provided to us by Global Vet Link: https://startit.artic.edu/kb/software/adobe/acro_reader_default.html Please make sure you are able to access your coggins and health certificates well before your events and traveling. If we receive your inquiry outside of business hours, we would hate for you to miss your deadlines! If we are unable to be reached, the customer support at Global Vet Link is EXTREMELY helpful and in most cases can fix any issues a lot faster than we are able to in the office. Global Vet Link web-site: www.myvetlink.com Global Vet Link phone: 515-817-5704 For a downloadable PDF file with Step-By-Step Account Set-Up Directions from Global Vet CLICK HERE! Posted by BethJFitz For those of you that own or care for horses with Equine Cushing's Disease, you are now very familiar with this pink box or will soon be! Prascend is an FDA approved pergolide mesylate made by Boehringer Ingelheim. Not only has it been proven in studies to be more effective than the previously prescribed compounded pergolide, but Kendyl and many of our clients have also seen the positive effects of Prascend first hand! The most common question or concern we get about Prascend is ... cost. Yes, Prascend does cost a lot more than compounded pergolide, but we feel that these higher costs have many advantages that outweigh the inconsistencies of the compounded, unregulated form. Just to name a few of Prascend's advantages: more consistent product overall, more stable and longer guaranteed shelf life, more effective in treating Equine Cushing's, much safer for our four-legged friends, and lowers long-term treatment costs for secondary Cushing's related ailments (laminitis, etc). At this time, Prascend is only available in a tablet form and each tablet contains 1 mg of pergolide mesylate. It is sold in boxes of 60 tablets or 160 tablets. To order Prascend for your horse or to re-fill your prescription: www.highlandhillvet.com/pharmacy To talk to Kendyl about Prascend: 508-923-3422 highlandhill@yahoo.com For more information about Prascend: www.prascend.com Posted by BethJFitz |
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