We've got spring shots coming up this week at our barn, and our vet said that they've formulated a new Six-way shot--it's the traditional Five-way (Rhino/Flu, EEE, WEE, Tetanus, and Sleeping) with the West Nile combined into it. We're in southern WI and that's our typical spring vaccine list. Some boarders also choose to give their horses Rabies vacc, but I personally don't think it's necessary (and many vets don't either, unless your area yields a particularly high rabies infection rate, which they would likely know about).
I've heard that many vets prefer to give Strangles in the fall, but I couldn't quote any reasons to you.
I do not give my horse the strangles--either the shot using inactive particles, or the intranasal "live" version because my horse reacts to it every year, and every year his reaction gets worse. Two years ago it laid him up for a month and took him a few months after that to be totally himself. The antibodies are stored in the guttural pouch at their throatlatch, and the way I understand it, too many modified viral versions of it means that there's a greater risk the immune system will turn against itself and attack those antibodies, which is likely what happened in my horse. Usually horses develop such reactions gradually, but a boarder at my stable said one horse at the equine sciences college she attended died on the spot after getting the intranasal vaccine. Now, the chances of that happening are extremely minute, but it definitely does make you think about things.
All in all, after my personal experiences involving the strangles vaccine, I would highly recommend testing for antibodies before vaccination.
Which always leads me to the next step...why do we not test horses for all regular vaccinated antibodies before we give them their yearly vaccines? Don't get me wrong--I am definitely for vaccinations, but I'm not all that sure it's a good idea to be continually throwing more and more modified strains at our horses. And some of them aren't even all that modified, from my understanding, at least not to the point where the immune system wouldn't recognize the new strain at all. It's kind of like the recent developments in de-worming practices, at least it seems that way to me. Especially for sensitive horses like my own, I just don't see it as necessary. It would be different if they all actually prevented the horse from getting the disease, but I doubt that type of vaccine would be necessary to administer annually anyway.
p.s. Just in case it's helpful to anyone, my vet recommends that sensitive horses get their vaccines injected into their hindquarters instead of their neck. They don't seem to react as much, plus there's a lot less soreness. It makes a huge difference in my horse, as well as in a few sensitive TB's at my barn.
My quite out of date, and human rather than horse, experience with this came in 2001 when I started grad school, and needed either measles-mumps-rubella and tetanus shots, or antibody titers showing that I had immunity. I wanted the titers but they would have cost $400 out of pocket. The vaccinations cost me about $35.
(That said, when I took my current job about 3 months ago, I needed the same, and they offered to do/pay for titers rather than just go to vaccinations. My titers were all good, so no shots. But this is a hospital, and I am sure their out of pocket costs for titers are not that much!)
Your last paragraph is exactly along the lines of what I was thinking. Sadly, I'm sure it all comes down to the fact that vaccines are cheaper than blood tests half the time, but i'd still be willing to bet that the results from an antibody titer test would suprise some owners. I think we're going to eventually see a rise in vaccine problems, just like we have with worming (more is not always better, etc). Pumping our horses with more and more modified viruses might come back to bite us in the butt one day. Thank you so much for your input- I'll be sure to speak to my vet about all of this and get her two cents. I'll let you know what she says!
Soooo.....just re-read this thread and realized I repeated most of what you said. Sorry! I'm on my phone and it doesn't always load the whole post. My apologies!
Thanks, I'd be very interested to hear what she thinks. (The vet my stable uses is rather old-fashioned, I'm afraid.)
Especially if you think about how often outbreaks of some of these things actually happen. Strangles is one thing, but it has pretty obvious symptoms and is easy to treat if you start right away (and it's not like the vaccine actually prevents a horse from getting it). I've heard that EEE and WEE are like influenza in humans in that they change rapidly, but I don't think I've even heard of a local outbreak of it. I've also heard that rhino/flu is something that, for horses with high exposure risk (*lots* of travel), should be vaccinated against more than once a year. West Nile makes sense to do yearly, at least for my state (and probably Michigan) as we have many cases of it in wildlife and can be difficult to treat. And sorry, I'm repeating everything *again* XD
I've heard that many vets prefer to give Strangles in the fall, but I couldn't quote any reasons to you.
I do not give my horse the strangles--either the shot using inactive particles, or the intranasal "live" version because my horse reacts to it every year, and every year his reaction gets worse. Two years ago it laid him up for a month and took him a few months after that to be totally himself. The antibodies are stored in the guttural pouch at their throatlatch, and the way I understand it, too many modified viral versions of it means that there's a greater risk the immune system will turn against itself and attack those antibodies, which is likely what happened in my horse. Usually horses develop such reactions gradually, but a boarder at my stable said one horse at the equine sciences college she attended died on the spot after getting the intranasal vaccine. Now, the chances of that happening are extremely minute, but it definitely does make you think about things.
All in all, after my personal experiences involving the strangles vaccine, I would highly recommend testing for antibodies before vaccination.
Which always leads me to the next step...why do we not test horses for all regular vaccinated antibodies before we give them their yearly vaccines? Don't get me wrong--I am definitely for vaccinations, but I'm not all that sure it's a good idea to be continually throwing more and more modified strains at our horses. And some of them aren't even all that modified, from my understanding, at least not to the point where the immune system wouldn't recognize the new strain at all. It's kind of like the recent developments in de-worming practices, at least it seems that way to me. Especially for sensitive horses like my own, I just don't see it as necessary. It would be different if they all actually prevented the horse from getting the disease, but I doubt that type of vaccine would be necessary to administer annually anyway.
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(That said, when I took my current job about 3 months ago, I needed the same, and they offered to do/pay for titers rather than just go to vaccinations. My titers were all good, so no shots. But this is a hospital, and I am sure their out of pocket costs for titers are not that much!)
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Especially if you think about how often outbreaks of some of these things actually happen. Strangles is one thing, but it has pretty obvious symptoms and is easy to treat if you start right away (and it's not like the vaccine actually prevents a horse from getting it). I've heard that EEE and WEE are like influenza in humans in that they change rapidly, but I don't think I've even heard of a local outbreak of it. I've also heard that rhino/flu is something that, for horses with high exposure risk (*lots* of travel), should be vaccinated against more than once a year. West Nile makes sense to do yearly, at least for my state (and probably Michigan) as we have many cases of it in wildlife and can be difficult to treat. And sorry, I'm repeating everything *again* XD
It's frustrating, obviously. =/
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