Near as I can tell from his scans (nuclear scintigraphy) it's where his gluteal muscle attaches to bone - at the third trochanter - and involves the flexing of his hip joint and movement of his (left) hind leg. At the time of his initial treatment he was having trouble swapping his leads and acting uncomfortable approaching jumps with his previous owner. It remains to be seen whether our work together will ultimately be affected...
Anyhow - Adequan not being inexpensive - I researched sources extensively. Recently I found out that there is also a generic version, Acetyl-D-Glucosamine, which is substantially less expensive, as in the cost for 50ml is the same as for 5ml of Adequan. The only study I could find about one versus the other claimed that the generic was less effective. This study was funded by the makers of Adequan, Luiptold. (Please don't even get me started talking bout pharmeceutical companies and proprietary rights!) The person who told me about this generic said she gets it from the compounding pharmacy US Compounding. She felt that even if the generic were somewhat less effective, the huge difference in price would allow for latitude in frequency of dosing. I asked my vet and they said they had not tried it so far.
I'm considering trying out the generic if I can, but in the meantime, since I recently filled my current prescription I'll stick with the Adequan. Maybe the much higher price is due to the super cute little huggie they sent with the bottle??
I suppose the super cute bottle huggie does justify the exorbitant cost of this stuff...not. I do wonder if the generic brand minus the huggie has the exact same ingredients. Of course, I love that the nay-sayers were the same company that makes Adequan. You just can't make this stuff up. I wonder if further independent research might prove the generic is as beneficial as Adequan. In the meantime I hope Val feels better after his injection.
ReplyDeleteI guess the outrageous pricing helps to pay for the "independent" research?!
ReplyDeleteNow this is interesting - the word verification is:
ReplyDeletepolocup
:0
I used Adequan for a couple of years for both Keil Bay and Salina. At the time I found a good source that had decent prices, but I've noticed the price overall has gone up this year and the source I used no longer sells it.
Our vet recommended I do injections every week for 4 weeks quarterly instead of every month through the entire year, which did seem to give more results than doing it monthly, which I had previously done (after the initial loading dose).
At some point I decided to try oral glucosamine and chondroitin using the pure human grade powders at a full therapeutic dose by weight and have gotten better results for Keil Bay with that method. I think for Salina the benefits are about the same. Her knees are severely arthritic so there's just not much that can be done except help her keep moving and address pain when she needs help with that.
I've been reading about the avocado-soy nutraceutical which seems to have more effect on damaged joints (as opposed to maintenance and prevention) but I haven't tried that yet.
You'll appreciate a dream I had awhile back when we were buying Adequan - I was on a long, labyrinthine journey with Keil Bay and on the journey we discovered a tack room that was stacked to the ceiling with boxes and boxes and boxes of new Adequan vials. :)
That little huggie is too cute - surely meant to make you smile even as you feel the pain of the credit card debit...
Hey Billie-
ReplyDeleteSo you were dosing four weeks in a row every third month? I might like to try that...
What's your source for the G and C? Is it added to food? Thanks for the helpful info.
Yes - the miniature huggie is really cute and did distract me from the extra large credit card charge...
Love the dream, although the Keebler Elf farm dream is my fave :)
Yes, every third month we did weekly injections.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if this is still what they recommend at our vet clinic, but at the time they felt that this schedule was more consistent with Luitpold's own efficacy reports and recommended dosage (which is once every 4 days for 28 days - which we did as the loading dose). And they said if I could afford to do the every 4 days for a month, quarterly, I'd likely get better results - but that was a chunk of cash for two horses.
What I did for awhile was this alternating schedule:
Month 1: Adequan weekly
Month 2: HA gel daily
Month 3: oral glucosamine and chondroitin daily (an equine blend, not what I'm doing now)
Month 4-6, repeat.
Month 7-9, repeat.
Month 10-12, repeat.
After I took the Care of Senior Horse class with Dr. Kellon I decided to try what she recommends, which is backed up by research that is NOT done by the companies making the products, and which is pure glucosamine and chondroitin orally and daily based on a tx dose by weight. These two supplements have been found to work best when used together - which you will find in equine supplements - but you will NOT find in equine supplements the combination at a therapeutic dose for BOTH ingredients.
Either one or the other will be at a tx dose, but not both.
I buy the pure human-grade powders in bulk from Nutrabio.com.
They have amazing customer service and respond to any questions you might have. I'm getting as good or better results as I ever got with Adequan (which I did get good results from, no disputing that fact).
For Keil Bay I see a better result with what I'm doing now. For Salina it's about the same, which makes sense in her advanced arthritic knee condition. To be honest, I treat her more to help her OTHER joints - she is more stable chiropractically throughout her body on the joint supps. than not.
I finally got a source for the human version of avocado soy, and am thinking of trying that for her as we move into winter - there are new studies that show this is better for joints already damaged.
I admit - I was not sad to be done with the needles either!