Herbie - 2015-10-28 10:03 AM

If he is having trouble breathing, one of two things is happening. Sometimes when a horse gets anxious and the heart rate increases, the soft palate will displace. You can initiate this during a scope by putting your hands over the horse's nostrils and see via scope if they displace due to the extra strain to breathe. If they are displacing, the question then becomes why, which leads me to the second part of why he may be having trouble breathing, even without displacement of the soft palate.....mucous/phlegm in the airways.

When a horse gets anxious or their heart rate increases, the airways likely constrict, which makes the air passages smaller. If there is mucous and phlegm in the airway, it constricts the airway even more and makes breathing difficult, hence the reason we often see horses cough during warm up only and then they are fine. They are clearing their airway of the mucous and phlegm so they can breathe.

I have dealt with an enormous amout of respiratory issues and anxiety issues due to the respiratory issues this year. My horse has always had mild breathing issues, allergies we'll call them, since he was sick as a yearling. He is now 5. I've been able to manage these issues with different supplements and keep him out of dusty situations as much as possible, which is difficult in Texas, but it was never bad enough to worry about. He ran on the track as a 3 YO drug free with no issues. Last winter as a 4 YO when we began seasoning him, his stress level increased, his breathing worsened, and we started going to vets. After 3 months, seeing 4 different vets, numorous medications at high doses, scopes, anti-biotics, nebulizers, supplements, steroids, etc, and over $5000 spent, I had a horse who was in complete respiratory distress on my hands. Last vet recommended to put him down, as we had exceeded all available treatment options.

Every single time we scoped him, which was 5 including the exercise scope, his soft palate was displaced. Question was why. The answer came later. This horse couldn't take a deep enough breath to cough and stood around panting taking short shallow breaths....heaving....even on 8 - 10 cc of Ventipulmin and Dex. He was pitiful. I began researching different things and a friend suggested 30 cc of French's mustard, which did help just enough to get him coughing a little bit and his nose to run. I began then researching what was in the mustard, which led me to turmeric, so I researched that, which led me to Curcurmin (http://www.curcuminforhealth.com/the-difference-between-turmeric-and-curcumin/). Then I took it a step further and educated myself on BCM-95 curcurmin (http://www.lifeextension.com/magazine/2007/10/report_curcumin/page-01), which led me to Dr. Schell and the Cur-OST product.

I visited with Dr. Schell for about 3 weeks and he explained to me in great detail and with great patience why no medications or therapies had been successful in treating this condition to this point. He explained to me why we were having soft palate displacement issues (due to the strain on the airways and lungs from the mucous and phlegm making the air passages smaller, as well as the glottis being vascular and heavy due to aggravation and mucous). He explained how stress and anxiety affects these issues as well due to the release of cortisol by the brain, which is also an inflammatory response, and can easily worsen an already fragile health situation. He and I emailed back and forth for about 3 weeks before I decided to try his product. I was so skeptical due to the fact that I have used almost every breathing supplement through the years on this horse and while they did help keep these issues manageable when he was healthy, he had been on them this entire time and had still gotten so sick, not to mention the fact that 4 vets hadn't been able to help. Dr. Schell asked that I give him 30 days on his product and to follow his specifications, and as a last resort I did just that. In 2 weeks I had a horse I was able to start exercising and that finally had a productive cough, and in 30 days I was back riding this horse and he was almost cough free. This was in March and i've been back to hauling this horse since June. His full story, along with others who have gone this route after seeing the changes it made in my horse, is on the Cur-OST thread on the product research forum.

Prior to starting this Cur-OST program, I removed my horse off of all supplements of any kind. No probiotics or prebiotics, no ulcer medicatiosn (which he'd been on for months during all of this to try to keep ulcers at bay....unsuccessfully), no joint supplements or additional breathing supplements. I took him off of all prescriptions medications as well. Clean slate. Feed, hay, cur-OST, and that's how he is today as well. I changed my diet to a whole grain (1 pound of whole oats once daily) alfalfa diet. No more processed feeds or supplements with synthetics in them anymore.

So many of us have no had such great success with this program, smokingirlie even had a horse who was on allergy shots due to an allergy panel she had done that showed she tested allergic to oats. Having discontinued her allergy shots and on the Cur-OST program, the same mare who was supposedly allergic to oats now eats oats twice daily without any problem.

It's hard to wrap one's mind around how the stomach and lower gut affects the immune system and all aspects of our, and our horse's health. If the stomach is inflamed and aggravated, then the immune response will become over active and will begin affecting other areas of our and our horse's health from allergies, COPD, ulcers, chronic joint and body soreness, etc.

I use the Total Support with the Adapt & Calm now that i'm past the first 90 days. Prior to that I used the Total Support, the Immune & Repair, and the Adapt & Calm. This has been an amazing journey for me and one that has been very eye opening and educational. I know some are tired of reading my story and seeing these results.....some assume i'm a dealer or work for the company, which I am not and do not.....I only hope that by sharing this information I can help others to not go through what I did and to help get our horses healthy from the inside out. There is a great deal of information from other folks and from Dr. Schell on www.secondvet.com as well. I encourage you to reat the Trusth & Transparency post as well, as it's very informative and IMO speaks volumes as to what kind of company this is. https://www.secondvet.com/index.php/kunena/equine/81-discussion-truth-transparency