Allergic to adequan?

[The Blue Bullet]

Does anyone else have a horse who is allergic to adequan? My filly has been getting adequan since March of last year and has had no problems previously. I gave her her most recent shot on the first. I gave her the shot as she was standing in her stall, and then I immediately pulled her out and had her in the barn aisle trying to use my weigh tape on her. Within a couple of minutes she started trying to itch her head on me which I ignored as being 2 (now 3) year old attitude. As I walked her down the aisle to go to the round pen she kept stopping to itch her leg. I put her in the round pen and after 3-4 minutes of her trotting around I starting seeing dots appear on her. They were the smallest hives I've ever seen. I brought her back into the barn and stopped to talk to my barn owner to ask her if she saw hives on her before I left and I just didn't notice. She said no, they weren't there before, but they definitely are now. I gave her 20 mg dex IV and she was fine. One vet has told me yes it's possible to have a reaction that fast, one vet has never heard of a horse being allergic to adequan, and a third vet didn't think she should react that fast to an IM injection. According to my timeline she started getting itchy within minutes of her shot. So was it the adequan or coincidence?

[Ghazzu]

Why are you giving adequan to a baby?

[The Blue Bullet]

Why are you giving adequan to a baby?

That wasn't the question but I'll answer you anyway.

As a preventative since she already shows changes on her hock x-rays even though she is not positive to flexion.

[3dazey]

This is probably not entirely helpful, but a friend's horse coliced both times he was given Legend IV. So I assume it's perfectly reasonable that a horse could develop a reaction to any type of medication...or anything at all, for that matter. :(

Hope your filly is fine now.

[The Blue Bullet]

This is probably not entirely helpful, but a friend's horse coliced both times he was given Legend IV. So I assume it's perfectly reasonable that a horse could develop a reaction to any type of medication...or anything at all, for that matter. :(

Hope your filly is fine now.

Do you happen to know how fast the horse started to colic? I would assume with an IV injection you'd have a faster reaction. I'm going to guess he was given it a second time to see if the colic and Legend were related.

My filly is doing fine now and it only took the one shot of Dex. I would have thought she might have needed dex for a few days knowing the Adequan would still be in her system.

[LarissaL]

My horse is (our best guess) allergic to the carrier in Adequan. After his first loading dose, the injection site swelled immediately. No fever, colic symptoms, or other discomfort. We assumed I'd hit a blood vessel, even though I didn't see blood.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30899443@N03/2893247448/in/photostream/

I attempted to do his next dose a few days later in another site and as I inserted the needle he bolted away, unable to be caught. The next day his body was covered in hives and every part of him was painful to the touch. I assume the irritation was present, but not visible, the day before and he was smart to avoid another dose.

Needless to say, no more Adequan. I'm now using Ichon and having no problems. It seems to work well for him (17 year old TB).

[3dazey]

The horse showed symptoms of being NQR pretty quickly after the first IV shot, as you suspected. We didn't link the Legend and the first colic at all, nor did the vet as it is apparently quite unusual. The horse continued to feel pretty crummy through that afternoon and most of the next day.

2nd dose there was no doubt of the connection, and that was the end of Legend for that horse.

It probably is the carrier that contains something offensive to the horses' systems, as the previous poster indicated.

[The Blue Bullet]

My horse is (our best guess) allergic to the carrier in Adequan. After his first loading dose, the injection site swelled immediately. No fever, colic symptoms, or other discomfort. We assumed I'd hit a blood vessel, even though I didn't see blood.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30899443@N03/2893247448/in/photostream/

I attempted to do his next dose a few days later in another site and as I inserted the needle he bolted away, unable to be caught. The next day his body was covered in hives and every part of him was painful to the touch. I assume the irritation was present, but not visible, the day before and he was smart to avoid another dose.

Needless to say, no more Adequan. I'm now using Ichon and having no problems. It seems to work well for him (17 year old TB).

Did you get any of the Adequan into him the time he bolted away after you poked him? His hives took awhile to show up?

[LarissaL]

I didn't actually get a chance to push the plunger, so probably only an incidental amount of Adequan. Perhaps it was enough to put him over the edge, or I just hadn't noticed other symptoms that preceded the hives. He's generally antsy on crossties, dislikes grooming (treating for ulcers) and I didn't ride him in the 4 interim days, so nothing stood out.

We didn't do much research on the issue, just decided NOT to chance it again as there is a reasonable alternative out there.

[The Blue Bullet]

I didn't actually get a chance to push the plunger, so probably only an incidental amount of Adequan. Perhaps it was enough to put him over the edge, or I just hadn't noticed other symptoms that preceded the hives. He's generally antsy on crossties, dislikes grooming (treating for ulcers) and I didn't ride him in the 4 interim days, so nothing stood out.

We didn't do much research on the issue, just decided NOT to chance it again as there is a reasonable alternative out there.

4 days for hives to show up seems like a lot but I guess it's possible. I'm still not convinced my filly could react that fast so I'm going to repeat to see if the hives show up again.

[Ghazzu]

4 days for hives to show up seems like a lot but I guess it's possible. I'm still not convinced my filly could react that fast so I'm going to repeat to see if the hives show up again.


Make sure you've got drugs to treat a reaction on hand before you do it...

[The Blue Bullet]

Make sure you've got drugs to treat a reaction on hand before you do it...

I'm a vet technician so I have plenty of drugs on hand. Dex is my favorite friend.

[Serah]

...

[LarissaL]

4 days for hives to show up seems like a lot but I guess it's possible. I'm still not convinced my filly could react that fast so I'm going to repeat to see if the hives show up again.

I sure hope it's not related, but immediate reactions are plenty to show me a causal relationship. Especially in an unnecessary drug.