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Re: [RC] vaccines - Susan GarlinghouseQuestions to vets...when we gave our children the >hated DPT vaccine, we premedicated them with >Tylenol so they'd feel better. I wonder if I should premedicate the horses with Bute before a vaccine, or >does it decrease their immunity ( and thus the >effectiveness of the vaccine) by altering the inflammatory process? For the most part, you don't want to interfere with the inflammatory process by pre-medicating with an anti-inflammatory, although in your case, you were justified in giving them some bute. In most vaccines (with the exception of some MLV and intranasal, those sort of guys), the manufacturers add an adjuvant that has no other purpose than to increase the local inflammatory response. The point being that if you create some local swelling, then the vaccine itself is leaked into the blood at a slower rate than otherwise. If vaccine is injected all at once, then you don't get as good an aimmune response, and theoretically, the animal is not as well protected against the disease. If the vaccine is semi-walled off and "leaked" into the system, the immune system has a longer opportunity to form memory cells, which have no other purpose than to wander around remembering what this disease looks like should it ever show up again. That being said, you actually want that local nasty inflammation, at least to some extent. In your case, if the horse isn't eating and is obviously miserable, a little bute or banamine is in order. I happen to prefer injecting in the pectoral muscles because they don't seem quite as awful as a sore neck, but lots of practitioners still prefer the neck. Exercise to keep them a little loose is fine. But, for the most part, you can maybe pre-med with just a *little* bute (like maybe half a gram), but for the most part, you want that inflammation to be there. It's sort of a Big Picture thing, though it might be tough explaining that to miserable ponies. :-/ Susan Garlinghouse DVM =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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