1. There are pieces of equipment that go over your horse’s nose or are placed up to a nostril in order to apply inhalers. These are special order items that are an expense to you.
2. Your doctor may ask you to have some for daily use, some for possible emergency use – there are three main types:
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Steroids – “Fluticasone inhaler after induction of severe Heaves resulted in complete resolution of clinical signs, normalization of pulmonary function tests and significant decrease in BAL neutrophils.” Dr. Giguere, University of Florida Veterinary School., Vet Immunopath, 2002.
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Bronchodilators
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Mast cell stabilizers
3. It is extremely important to get the right inhaler – there are two types and if you get the wrong type it will not go one (1) inch up your horse’s nose and just cost a lot of money.
4. Inhaler steroids have the advantage of sending medications right to the problem area of the airway without having to treat the whole body as in oral or IV meds. This allows a lower dose of steroid to be used.
WARNING:
Inhaled steroids, just like oral or injectable steroids, can create Insulin Resistance (IR). If your horse is already IR, you need to know these can make IR worse/Laminitis trigger. See article showing 1 single dose of Flumethasone created hyperinsulin levels in blood in animal studies.
Click here to see Dr. Sternbauer’s article in Zentralbl Veterinarmed A., 1998, Fluemethasone-induced insulin resistance in calves.
5. Cost of inhalers is an important subject – need to look at prior to buying equipment. 8/2013 – CVS Pharmacy.
Veterinarians have advocated 8-12 puffs a day of Fluticasone for 2 weeks then go to every other day – so you can go through two of the Flovents in less than 3 weeks at the cost of over $300.00. Yearly use runs over $2500.00 for just the Flovent Steroids.
6. For most owners, the cost and labor of doing this on a daily basis is too much – a great concept but difficult in the usual world of horse owners.