Reserpine -- Side Effects

[Pascova]

My horse has a pulled suspensory and is on stall/small paddock rest for months. I tried Quietex to keep him quiet, but it is clearly not working. Has anyone tried reserpine? I ordered some, but then heard that once a horse is on it they have to stay on it or else they will go crazy?? Is there any truth to this? I do not want to have to administer reserpine for the rest of his life.... just while he is rehabbing.

Any advice would be very appreciated. Thanks

[Blue Bandit]

we have been giving weekly Reserpine shots to an OTTB who has been laid up for two months now (COMPLETE stall rest until just this past week) with very good results. I don't know what will happen when we take her off it...the vet assures me there will not be adverse effects...we'll see

[Ghazzu]

Mainn side effect is screaming diarrhea.
If you're giving the oral, simply back off the dose a little and that usually resolves.

[mroades]

I have a suspensory horse that is getting the compounded paste from farmvet. He is such a raging lunatic on stall rest that he gets two doses of paste in the morning, and then we can actually lead him without him climbing on our heads. He has had no digestive side effects like with the shot.

[jennywho]

When tallking about oral reserpine are you giving the injectable orally? Same dose as the injectable or is there reserpine that is specifically for oral administration?

I have heard enough horror stories about the rare but dramatic bad reaction to the injectable that I worry (not enough to not give it when needed).

[inquisitive]

My horse was on the oral (liquid, not paste) for several weeks after surgery. He had no side effects during treatment or when weaning him off. Agree with the other poster, try it, and if you start to notice stomach issues, bring it back down. My vet said most horses have no issues whatsoever.

As a side note, the liquid that my horse got smelled like fruit punch and he loved it! I had to be careful not to let him eat the syringe! If he wasn't such a pig about spilling his grain I could have just poured it on his feed.

[pharmgirl]

I used it orally in pill form. It really helped my guy for his suspensory rehab. I took him off it with no problems. The pills are very small, so it was easy just to put them in his feed (he only needed a few anyway). I never had any issues, but we knew with the oral dosing we could just change the amount at any point that we noticed a problem.

[Jumphigh83]

Paste did NOTHING for my horse on total stall rest for bone chip surgery. I liked the powder from but on another horse. Don't like the injectable since I had some diarrhea issues with it...somehow couldn't get control of that!

[Pascova]

I am doing the liquid orally on his food-- it is the same form as injectable. We did it for the first day today and have not seen any results. Does it usually take a few days? I used 8ccs for a 1250lb TB. it is .25mg/ml concentration liquid. Thanks

[murphyluv]

I worked with a horse that was on stall rest for quite some time. He had his 3rd colic surgery, big wb, was on injectable Reserpine. I think the injectable lasts longer, but there are more complications? Ghazzu, can you chime in on the difference between the different forms?
The injectable lasted for a few months, but the vet said it can slow down their gut- big issue with this guy. We had to give him LOTS of mush food, soaked hay, trying to keep his gut going, keeping him drinking. He also got VERY reactive coming off of it. Not hyper, but he would be asleep, then the tiniest sound or disturbance would make him explode. Quite dangerous hand walking him.

[NRB]

Mainn side effect is screaming diarrhea.
If you're giving the oral, simply back off the dose a little and that usually resolves.

What Ghazzu said. At our barn they use oral (pills) and give enough to notice effect but back off if they see any diarrhea. I've not seen any other side effects, but I've only known 3 horses on it.

[kwilhide]

My horse is on it now(suspensory). I did not like him on the long term injection, he was hypersensitive and reactive. We are now using the liquid, and have also used the pills. I use the minimum effective amount, if we give too much I still see hypersensitivity- so I had to experiement. He has not had diarrhea at all.
He is 1300+ lbs and he is most of the time fine on 3cc - 4cc. We do have him turned out in a small paddock, so this is not complete stall rest, but close too it. The small paddock seems to keep him sane.
I am very happy with how it is working, it just takes alot of experimenting to get to the right dose, coupled with the right level of stall rest/grazing/handwalking and if it works for you, small pen turnout.

Also, he gets calm and cool pellets morning and night as well. Valerian has always been effective at taking the edge off of him.

[justathought]

We used it for stall rest and through the beginning stages of rehab.... otherwise it would have been a disaster. We used the pills and just tossed them in with a handful of grain. We had no problems with the pills and no side effects.

We adjusted the dose downward over a period of time as the horse came back into work. There were no problems taking the horse off the drug.

[Fharoah]

I tried reserpine on my gelding both injectable and injectable orally. Neither worked for him and I was very disapointed as nothing else I had tried had worked as he was wild and needed to rest to heal. My gelding is slowly improving but we ended up using allot of ace which is not all that effective either. I was the minority, I hope reserpine works for your guy!