Compounded drugs are a bit of a hot topic in veterinary medicine, for various reasons. As veterinarians, we rely on them to treat our patients when no other drug will do. For many years, pergolide (used to treat
Cushing's Disease in horses) has been one of these compounded drugs. In a few days, a major drug company will release
Prascend®, a new FDA-approved formulation of pergolide. So, what's the difference, and how will it affect you and your horses?
What's that sound coming from the end stall? It sounds like a long wheeze and a cough. No, it's not a goblin that got lost during Halloween. It's something that can be even more frightening - a heavey horse.
Heaves in horses is a respiratory disease that affects the lower airway (the lungs and bronchi). An easy association would be to call it "equine asthma". Heaves typically has an allergic component to it and tends to be seasonal. Since the disease results in chronic inflammation of airway, it can affect the horse year round.
You may have heard it called Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), Recurrent Airway Obstruction (RAO), or Inflammatory Airway Disease (IAD). The currently used moniker is RAO. COPD is a human disease and there is not a lot of correlation between heaves and the human syndrome, so that name is no longer used. IAD is similar to heaves, but is lesser in severity, tends to affect young performing horses, and is not recurrent. In the end, the term "heaves" or RAO should be reserved for mature horses with chronic airway obstruction that can be reversed by environmental change or bronchodilation. (Don't worry, we'll get to that later!)
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