Page 107 - Jan_2020

disinfectant),” he says. If you use alcohol, let the area dry again before injecting; a needle going through wet skin and hair is more likely to take dirt/bacteria with it.
“Use a sterile needle, a new syringe and choose a clean spot on the horse. That’s about all you can do to try to prevent problems. If you notice swelling later or if the horse is not doing as well you’d expect, get veterinary
help – the sooner the better. Load that horse
in a trailer and take him to the vet, rather than calling and waiting for the vet to come to you,” says Randall.
“The horse I treated for clostridial myositis in 1989 received a vaccination. He was not very good about injections, and the owner gave it to him in the hindquarter (but not in the best location). This horse also had a history of reactions,” he says.
“It was a Friday when the owner called. The horse had received the vaccination early
in the week. He always got stiff and sore after vaccination, and the owner had been doing some massage and chiropractic work on this horse. When they called me, it didn’t sound good. When I walked into the barn, I could smell that horse – a sickly sweet odor put off by clostridial organisms. The horse was standing out in the arena, holding his left hind leg up. The whole leg was cold and swollen, with gas bubbles under the skin all the way up the leg,” recalls Randall.
“I got him started on antibiotics, clipped his hind leg from hock to croup, and figured out where the major problem areas were. We cleaned those up and made a lot of incisions to open them up, let the gas out, and start drainage. The tissues were dead and rotting. We didn’t have to use any anesthesia to make the incisions because he had no feeling at all in those tissues. These were incisions 8 to 12 inches long,” he says.
“We asked about euthanasia. The horse
was insured for a fair amount of money and I told the owner the chances of surviving this infection were poor and it would be reasonable to euthanize him, but we’d have to call the insurance company first. The owner told me to save the horse if I could. So, we got the horse loaded and took him to our clinic. He was already starting to feel better, just from the antibiotics and opening up those areas; you could tell by the way he acted,” says Randall.
“We kept him in the clinic about a
month and he ended up sluffing an area in
his left thigh, leaving a hole as large as half a watermelon where all the muscle was gone. His sciatic nerve kept functioning, however, and his hip joint was okay, so he survived and was able to keep going.” Randall recalls.
Some horses aren’t this lucky. Randall tells of another horse that had an infection at an
injection site-on top of the gluteal muscles (rump area). “There was noticeable swelling. I gave the horse antibiotics, loaded him in a trailer and took him to the clinic and he was dead when I got there,” Randall says.
The first ivermectin deworming products for horses were injectable and there were
several incidents of clostridial infections with those. “Here at our clinic, we probably used about 3,000 doses of it during the time it
was available as an injection, and it was my favorite dewormer. We always gave the horse an injection of penicillin in the same region, at the same time.” This eliminated the risk because penicillin is very effective against clostridia.
“We never had any trouble with those injections, but the company later went to
an oral product partly because of injection reactions, but mainly as a marketing tool because it was easier for horse owners to give it orally,” says Randall.
PROPER WAYS TO USE BANAMINE
“It is less risky to give this orally or by IV injection rather than as an IM injection,” says Randall. “There are times you need it when a horse is flopping around on the ground with colic. If you plan to have any flunixin products on hand, however (whether paste or injectable), you need to be able to assess that horse and know whether you should actually give this drug. That means you need to be able to take
a pulse, listen to gut sounds, and look at the gums to know if the horse is shocky,” he says.
“An owner called one night wanting me
to come to the fairgrounds and give fluids to
a horse. This was about 11 p.m. The show
vet had looked at the horse earlier and said it needed fluids. The owner had given the horse an injection of Banamine about 7 p.m. and it wasn’t doing well. I asked about the history on the horse. The owner said it wasn’t eating well that morning, so they gave it Banamine. This means the horse was sick all night by the time they discovered it was off feed that morning, and probably sick the day before. They didn’t want to haul the horse to a vet because they had to show some other horses the next day. They just kept giving it more Banamine, and a day or two later, after the show, they hauled the horse home and it died. The owner just assumed they could keep giving it Banamine!” says Randall.
When Banamine first came out about 1980, people considered it a cure-all. “We thought
we could just give a shot of Banamine and make the horse better. But, we soon found
out that the horses that needed surgery didn’t get surgery as soon as they should. We’d give Banamine, and it would be 4-5 hours before the horses started showing they were sick again. Sometimes, those few hours were the difference in whether they lived or died. If the horse is
This horse with clostridial myositis was first given antibiotics, his hind leg was clipped from hock to croup, and 8-12 inch long incisions were made to start drainage and to let oxygen in and gas out. The horse eventually sluffed an area along his left thigh and was left with a hole where the muscle was gone.
not a surgical candidate, giving Banamine is fine. But if the horse does need surgery, you shouldn’t wait. There is a lot of responsibility that goes with the owner giving Banamine – whether the paste or the injectable (whether by IV or oral).”
Banamine may mask colic symptoms enough that you end up being a little late with the decision to do surgery. The horse seems better after the Banamine, so the owner goes off and does something else for a while, and then comes back to find the horse is worse again. By then, it may be evening, and the optimum window of time for doing colic surgery (before the horse is too shocky and the gut too compromised) may be gone.
“If the horse is shocky and you give a full dose of Banamine, this is hard on the kidneys because that horse is dehydrated (not as much circulating blood volume, because of shock). Or if you have a hard-working horse that’s dehydrated, you need to get 10 to 15 liters of fluid into him before you give him any drugs. And then you should give only a quarter or a third of a dose of Banamine,” he explains.
Dr. Matt Randall, a veterinarian at Collier Equine, in Waller, Texas, says there seems to be more risk for clostridial infections with full doses of Banamine, compared to a half dose or less. “You can give the product orally, however, to reduce risk for problems. I recommend to my clients that if they can’t get the injectable product into the vein, to just give a little extra and squirt it in the mouth. It tastes terrible, but they can get it into the horse that way if the horse is having a serious problem like colic,” says Matt.
Many people have given IM injections of Banamine for years without problems, but they need to be aware of the risk. “It’s a low risk,
SPEEDHORSE, January 2020 103
EQUINE HEALTH