Cob Jockey

After she had had him for a couple of weeks and had really gotten to know him, CGP said she thought he might have ulcers, and asked if I was okay with her vets looking at him. She had gotten to know his baseline anxiety level and theorized that his mouth issues may have started with/may be related to ulcer-related pain. Of course I said yes, heck, upending his entire life and putting him in training is enough by itself to warrant a round of treatment. 

Still wearing his borrowed drop

I was expecting a scope for diagnosis, but the vet more suspected hindgut ulcers which can't be scoped, and he used the Succeed fecal test to diagnose them. I had never heard of it, and I have since learned that there are mixed reports on its accuracy, but it's cheap ($40ish) and doesn't hurt anything. Per the test, Connor ended up being a "strong positive" for hindgut ulcers (which he's never been treated for), which present differently in this test than foregut ulcers (which he has been treated for).

The vet recommended 2 weeks of omeprazole/misoprostol paste and 2-4 months of either Sulcralfate or misoprostol. I had only ever heard of sulcralfate to treat hindgut ulcers before, so CGP explained the differences to me and that she prefers misoprostol to sulcralfate for significant hind gut issues because there's evidence it's more effective - also more expensive, but the treatment length tends to be shorter than with sulcralfate. 

Like most equine scientific studies, the studies aren't the strongest things in the world, but they do exist and they support what she said (also three cheers for ACTUAL SCIENCE existing at all on this) so I told her to go ahead. He was on days 3-5 of treatment the weekend I took him home, and he was chill as could be all weekend and ate a literal record amount of hay on the trailer, so, so far so good?

It will be interesting to see if this changes anything, but one way or another, it's a good step to take for a generally anxious fellow.