From: Melissa
Hello,
Could you please give me some more information on Reserpine?
Let me give you some specifics on my horse and situation. First off, my horse is at a very nice barn where he is turned out for about 12 hours each day. He is a thouroughbred who raced for 6 years, and is now 12. We have been working on dressage for the past 5 years to work on his mental state, and have made some progress. He is however, still very skittish. For example, he will spook at nothing in the indoor arena he is riden in every other day. He is a very sweet guy, but I am very frustrated with his mental state.
A former trainer of mine suggested Reserpine. Could you please give me the specific side effects associated with using the drug. How often does it need to be given, is it given as oral or injectable, how extreme is the mood change, will he act like a horse that is on ace (lethargic)?
Your other article on Reserpine for the lady with MS was right on. Is there any good reason or time to use it, though?
Thanks so much!
Melissa
I'm not going to go into the details of injecting a horse with reserpine. Your vet can tell you all that - he, after all, will need to prescribe and purchase the drug. It's not available over the counter.
I will discuss its effects, but first, I strongly suggest that you look for an alternative method of calming your horse. More turnout time and lower-protein hay can help. Is your horse getting grain? If he's a twelve-year-old pleasure horse, he may not need any at all, and he would probably love to have more hay, or more pasture time, instead. Is there any chance he could be turned out 24 hours a day instead of 12?
Take some time to address all of the usual issues of comfort - have your horse's back and feet and legs checked, have his teeth thoroughly floated, and evaluate your saddle and bit suitability, fit, and adjustment. It's usually a good idea to look at the riding you are doing, too - if you are both bored with your routine and not paying much attention to each other, he's more likely to spook and you're more likely to be surprised when he does. ;-)
If you have access to a qualified person who does equine massage, you may be able to help your horse a great deal by arranging for at least one session so that the horse can be evaluated. Discomfort is a big factor in 99% of what riders think of as misbehaviours, including a lot of spooking.
Right, then, on to the drug talk.
Reserpine is actually a useful drug, for the human patients who are given it as part of the treatment they require for their blood-pressure problems.
For horses, it's often - far too often - used as a sedative. Some racehorse trainers use it to calm excitable youngsters just beginning their training. Some show-horse trainers use it to make their horses calm or dull,
Just to give you an idea of where reserpine fits into the life of a riding horse with no overt illness or injury, let's see what the AHSA has to say about the use of reserpine for horses in competition.
If you look at the AHSA Drugs and Medications rule, you'll see that all drugs and medications are classified as permitted, restricted, or forbidden. The AHSA is quite liberal about these categories and about the use of drugs therein!
Permitted drugs are supposed to be used for therapeutic purposes, but even this category includes such misused substances as anabolic steroids.
Restricted drugs are therapeutic drugs that are allowed to be used only up to certain limits (determined by the plasma concentration level in the horse's blood at the time of competition). Most of the NSAIDS (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs), like Bute, falli nto this category.
Then you have the Forbidden drugs - those that can affect the horse's performance. The drugs in this category can be divided into two groups.
One group consists of those forbidden drugs that can still be used under certain very specifc circumstances. A forbidden drug or medication could be administered to a horse IF it was used in a therapeutic way, IF its use were properly reported to the AHSA, and IF it were not administered to the horse during the 24 hours before competing. Those exceptions are made only for therapeutic drugs, though, and there has to be proof that there is a genuine reason to use them for their therapeutic effects.
There is another subcategory or group of "forbidden" drugs. These are the "nontherapeutic drugs" - in other words, drugs for which there is no legitimate therapeutic use in the competing horse. This means that there is NO illness or injury that could possibly require the administration of the drug. It may interest you to know that two of the listed drugs in this category are reserpine and cocaine.
The key word here is "competing". A substance that might possibly have a legitimate medical use under other circumstances - to help keep a nervous mare from attacking her newborn foal, for instance, or to keep a frightened, agitated horse calm while it undergoes an emergency medical procedure - has no place in the system of a horse that is being competed. To my mind, this sort of drug also has no place in the system of a horse that's being ridden. If the horse cannot be ridden without being sedated, then something is wrong.
Reserpine is a long-acting, long-lasting drug. Most drugs won't show up in a horse's blood or urine after a week or ten days, but the presence of reserpine can be detected at any time up to 45 days after administration.
You ask whether there might be a good reason or time to use reserpine. My short answer is "NOT FOR TRAINING OR RIDING". The longer answer is that yes, I have heard of it being used in certain situations where a long-lasting sedative was deemed appropriate by the veterinarian in charge of a particular animal. Some mares are bad mothers, known for attacking and sometimes killing their newborn foals. In such cases, attending veterinarians will sometimes administer reserpine to the mares for a few days before they foal, to make them less ferocious in their initial reaction to their foals. Under related circumstances, reserpine has been used on some occasions to help certain mares "let down" their milk.
And, yes, some trainers DO routinely administer it to nervous youngstock when training begins. I don't like to see this. I'm all in favour of drugs and medications that serve to treat illnesses or injuries, but when it comes to the long-term education of a horse, I much prefer "better living through training" to "better living through chemistry". If a horse is suffering from an actual chemical imbalance, and is nervous and unusually excitable as a result, even after all possible arrangements have been made to create a good and natural living environment for the horse, then a chemical may indeed be the answer - but I would want to know the details of the horse's condition, blood profile, etc. I suggest that you talk with your veterinarian about supplementing the horse's diet, temporarily or long-term, with tryptophan or magnesium. It is possible for a horse to need more tryptophan in its diet. It is possible for a horse to have a magnesium deficiency. It is NOT possible for ANY horse to have a reserpine deficiency.
Side effects? Drowsiness and diarrhea are common in horses and humans. Slow reaction time, fatigue, dullness are also common effects in horses and humans. Other side effects listed for humans include mental depression, dizziness, headache, arrhythmias, and edema.... bad enough in humans, but dangerous to both you and the horse you are riding.
Something else to consider: In humans, gastric ulcers are a contraindication for Reserpine. A very high percentage of horses, especially those who spend a good deal of time in stalls, suffer from gastric ulcers.
As for other known complications, here's one to think about. If a horse that requires surgery has Reserpine in its system, the anesthetic given for the surgery can combine with the Reserpine to cause the horse's blood pressure to fall, very suddenly, to a level at which it cannot survive.
Ask your vet to do bloodwork on your horse and see whether there is anything unusual about his blood profile. Then, if nothing leaps to the eye, ask his opinion of administering reserpine to a 12-year-old riding horse to make it calm and quiet (and, if he is a good vet, stand back and be ready to say "Just kidding, Doc!"). Then ask about the possibility of using tryptophan instead. The tryptophan can be administered in the feed, won't affect the horse's reflexes and motor coordination, and can be discontinued without leaving a long-term residue.
As I see it, there are three possibilities.
One is that your horse's nervousness may be amenable to changes in his management (diet, turnout, tack, exercise program). He may simply be reacting normally to circumstances that don't really suit him. I'd put the vast majority of "problem horses" into this category.
One is that your horse may benefit from a tryptophan or magnesium supplement - or some other supplement that your vet recommends. There is a small but definite group of horses that would fall into that category, too.
One is that your horse is simply a very high-strung, nervous type, and that what you are seeing at age 12 is what he has been since birth and what he will be all his life. The number of horses that fall into THIS category would be very, very small.
Truly, the effects of major changes in management can be very dramatic, even when an older horse is involved. Sometimes the answer is as simple as full-time pasture and work outdoors instead of a full- or half-time stall and work in an indoor school. Sometimes a simple diet change will do the trick, especially if an adult pleasure horse is being fed like a young racehorse. I was once brought an "uncontrollable" horse that was indeed very nervous and agitated - but that calmed down wonderfully once he was fed a lot of grass hay instead of his "normal" diet of four flakes of alfalfa and sixteen quarts of oats. If you are worried about keeping weight on the horse, talk to your vet about a feeding plan that will include more grass and hay, more fat, and a smaller amount of concentrates. If you simultaneously provide more, and more interesting, exercise for your horse, you may see a huge improvement in a relatively short time.
I would strongly suggest that you start there, work with your vet and your present trainer/instructor, and disregard the advice of the person who thought you should use Reserpine. It's a good rule of thumb to avoid using any substance that can cause short- and long-term damage, that doesn't address, treat, or cure any real problems, and that can put both your horse AND YOU at risk.
Jessica
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