Did you know some studies put equine ulcers at 96% of horses? That’s crazy.

There are other studies that show the number is at least 60%. Why is that?

On Horse Mysteries Solved podcast, I’ll tell you why so many horses have ulcers.

And what to do about it.

Links mentioned:
Ulcer Revival

Summary:
Summary by AI:

Dr. Renee Tucker discusses the prevalence and categorization of ulcers in horses on her podcast, “Horse Mysteries Solved.” She highlights that studies show a significant majority of horses—ranging from 67% to 96%—suffer from ulcers, causing pain and distress for both horses and owners.

She simplifies the types of ulcers into three categories: **big hole ulcers**, **little holes**, and **hidden holes**.

1. **Big hole ulcers** are severe, causing clear symptoms like colic, teeth grinding, and black stools. She advocates for immediate veterinary intervention, often recommending medications like GastroGuard to manage pain.

2. **Little holes** precede big holes and present subtler symptoms, including attitude changes and poor performance. Tucker suggests herbal treatments and constant access to hay as preventive measures.

3. **Hidden holes** are microscopic and primarily caused by vaccinations. She argues that these hidden ulcers can lead to the development of more severe ulcers over time. Tucker recommends holistic approaches such as homeopathy and her own energy product, TBT Ulcer Revival, to address these underlying issues.

Tucker emphasizes the importance of managing stressors and providing continuous hay to prevent ulcers. She warns against using supplements containing calcium carbonate, which can further exacerbate acid-related issues in the stomach.

Overall, she believes that ulcers in horses are preventable and treatable with proper care and awareness.

Transcription:

Renee (00:03)
Hello there. Good morning, afternoon, evening. I’m Dr. Renee Tucker, and today we’ll be talking on this podcast, Horse Mysteries Solved. Now, of course, there’s plenty on the internet that you can look up. I’ve done that in the past, and I found it curious that it all has the same information. I’m going to give you some different information, and hopefully it’ll be useful to you. Now, some of the studies, well, there’s several studies talking about how many of our horses have ulcers, and it’s generally, it’s the majority of horses have ulcers. Studies range from 67% all the way to there’s a study that says 96% of horses have ulcers, which is quite terrible. If you’ve ever seen a horse with really bad ulcers, it’s very painful. And so we want to do our best to get our horses out of this pain. I would like to break down ulcers into three categories. And I’m going to simplify it with simple names just to make it easier to understand. In no way do I want to belittle the pain that this is causing and the stress for not only the horse, but the owner.

Renee (01:27)
It’s a big deal, but I want to keep it easy to understand. There are different grades of ulcers that people, scientists, grade on a scale usually of zero or one to four or five. There’s a couple grading systems, and that’s for when you get your horse endoscoped, and you look at the little camera, and they grade them on the severity. I have a different system. I have three levels, I guess you’d call them. I’m talking big hole ulcers, or little holes or hidden holes, which are the kinds you can’t see unless you have a microscope. All right, first, let’s talk about the big hole ulcers. These are the ones that is mostly described on the internet. This is when you have fairly obvious, consistent symptoms, and they’re pretty bad. We have big hole ulcers. We have Things like teeth grinding, colic. You might have black stools because if the ulcer is very big, it can be bleeding. And that blood, after it passes through the digestive system, is black in the poop. So black poop, maybe not eating, maybe diarrhea. It’s absolutely just miserable and painful, as in they could try to bite you or kick you because they’re so angry and painful.

Renee (03:01)
Those are big hole ulcers, according to my breakdown. If you have a horse who has big hole ulcers, whether or not you did the endoscope and found out, if they’re in that pain, then you would, in this case, want to do medical treatment. I mean pharmaceutical drugs. I know. You might have fallen over on the floor. If you know me, I never say to use pharmaceutical drugs. Well, guys, let me tell you this little story because one time there was a horse, and I saw it with my own eyes, horse was colicky, okay? Palling, rolling on the floor, just miserable, ears back, just not eating, of course. Awful, awful colic. Colic medications such as banamine, et cetera, did nothing. So this horse is now at the equine hospital where I was at, and Colicky, colicky, doing all the colic stuff, nothing. No results. Thinking about colic surgery. Suddenly, one of the attending physicians gives an intravenous ulcer medication. I forget. And within 10 minutes, that horse was perfectly fine. I was like, You are kidding me. That serious painful colic was actually ulcers? Yeah. So Again, if your horse has this severe pain, first you should be talking to your vet and probably not watching my video, but then go ahead and do some ulcer medication.

Renee (04:41)
Generally, gastro guard is the strongest one to handle that type of pain. Now, let me talk a little bit about GastroGuard. Like I said, it is really good for getting horses out of pain right away, but you want to use it short term. I’d like to really explain why. Gastroguard stops the pain by stopping the production of acid for the stomach. So if you got big holes in there and acid hits those holes, it’s very painful. Of course, we want to stop the pain. However, horses need acid in order to digest their food. If you continue with the gastro guard or any medication that’s stopping the production of acid, over time, your horse’s body is going to say, Hey, dude, I cannot digest this food without some more acid. You know what? The body will up the production, increase the production of stomach acid. This is why sometimes when you stop giving any ulcer medications, the body’s acid production is already super high, and it hasn’t had time yet to go back down. Sometimes when you stop production, you see this all of a sudden huge increase in ulcer symptoms all over again. That’s exactly what’s happening is that all of a sudden you have, I don’t know how much, double the regular production of acid because the medication told the horse to stop.

Renee (06:23)
Now, the biochemistry of that is interesting, but for the purposes of this video, I’m really just trying to focus on the cause and a little less on treatments and all that stuff. But I think some of it is important to get out there. The second thing with gastro guard and any medication that stops or slows the production of acid. Acid is interesting because it helps the digestion of the food. Then when it’s done with its digestive process, acid, long story, blah, blah, blah, turns into water. Yeah, it’s interesting. Then there’s all this more water from the acid when it is used for digestion, turns into water. Cool. Really handy, honestly. If we’re not making enough acid, which we might not need to take a pause on it there because the ulcers, but if we’re not making enough acid, the horse actually gets dehydrated. You may think, as I did, Well, come on, the horse It’s just going to get thirsty. It’s going to go drink. What’s the big deal? Well, strangely enough, guys, it’s very interesting because when the horse has medication making less acid, which breaks down into less water. But the body will also tell the horse, Don’t drink any more water, even though we’re dehydrated.

Renee (07:54)
Because if you drink water, you dilute what little acid I already have. Now I can’t digest anything that I’m already having trouble. Horses, definitely, no matter what you do, they get dehydrated on the medication. Yes, you need the medication. Yes, they’re going to get dehydrated. It’s just another reason to get them off the medication as soon as possible. That’s important to know, I feel, because sometimes people think, Well, I’ll just leave them on it. Sure, I know. Pharmaceuticals, it’s got to be processed through the kidney and liver. But that’s okay because my horse just doesn’t have ulcers. Well, the dehydration is one thing that it’s also causing. So please just try to get them off. That’s our big holes. That’s the one with the obvious symptoms. The little holes are another form of ulcers that happen before you get big holes. You You will not get big, holeed, painful, obviously terrible ulcers unless you first have little holes. So symptoms for little holes are a little bit more subtle. Of course, there’s a range and variable, and it certainly does depend on the individual’s tolerance to pain. It depends on where the ulcers are located.

Renee (09:24)
But here’s just a short list. I don’t know if I told you this. I have a report, an e-book that I call Fix your Horses, Ulcers, Forever. And I got three pages, three pages of symptoms for little holes. Here’s just some of them. Attitude changes, poor hair coat, poor athletic performance, such as, but not limited to, unwilling to go forward, difficulty bending, seeming to resist bit contact, hunchy through the back, unable to relax while ridden, then lying down more than normal, attention in the loin muscles, sluggishness in the muscles, poor appetite, maybe swollen glands under the jawbone. You can have low iron on a blood test or very pale gums. Just body soreness, cribbing, sensitivity over the sides, anxiousness, anger, defensiveness, dead sided, meaning they don’t respond to your legs, leaving. I mean, there is a very long list of symptoms that you get with little holes, with ulcers. Sometimes people catch on to these, sometimes they don’t catch on. One time, this lady that I saw, she thought her horse was so cute and adorable, and of course he was. But he would par before his food. That’s fine. He’s ready for his food.

Renee (11:06)
He’s pawing, no worries. But she feeds him, and the whole time he’s eating his slakes of hay, he will take a bite, and then he will back all the way up in his stall and chew it, and then walk forward to get another bite. And she thought that was 100% adorable and just a cute little habit that he had. Actually, no. That moving, that uncomfortableness, even if it seems cute, is a sign of ulcers. That horse had ulcers. Other times people tell me that their horse just almost wants the pie when he’s eating, but he just holds his leg up while he’s eating. That’s a sign of ulcers. Maybe you’re not having any trouble writing, but there’s all these subtle signs that you see first. Now, of course, 20, 20, hindsight, if you find out they have ulcers, you’re like, Oh, yeah, I guess he or she was doing all these other signs, and they’re tough to know. Well, everything’s tough to know until you know it, right? Okay. With Little Holes. Little Holes, it’s a good idea to try the herbal treatment first. So any brand you like… In the US, I tend to like Silver Lining Herbs, and Hilton Herbs is good, and there’s many other companies that herbs that help to support the body in healing the stomach and the intestinal tract.

Renee (12:39)
Are they technically getting rid of the cause of ulcers? No. But they’re helping, and they’re worth doing if it gets your horse out of pain. So herbal supplements are perfectly fine. Now, if you have little holes and we would like to avoid medications, there’s a couple of things you could do is besides the herbal stuff, please feed your horse hay all the dang time, 24/7. Availability for hay all the time. I’m not kidding. We’re feeding the microbiome of the horse, not the horse itself. Try to keep it that way because a microbiome in the sea mostly needs hay and mixed species of hay. So lots of different types, except for for alfalfa and except for rye. Those are bad. Lots of hay all the time. Some horses I see, and they’re getting the little ulcer signs, and the best the owner can do at the moment is just feed more hay. I’ve had plenty of horses with these, again, symptoms of ulcers, feed hay 24/7, get a hay bag, get a gazillion of hay bags, and they’re fine. Now, are they really, really fine? No, because they have these hidden holes that turn into little holes.

Renee (14:02)
We’re getting to that. But feed your horse hay all the time. Please make it available as much as humanly possible. Okay, and then let’s see. The other thing you can do if you have little holes, and then I say this in my PDF report, ebook, whatever you want to call it, is using mineral clay. Now, mineral clay actually just sticks to the ulcers that would be in the horse. In that way, it prevents the acid from getting to the holes so that it doesn’t hurt. Basically, if you remember the old Pepto-obisnol commercial where it said it coats and sooths and relieves, that’s what happens with mineral clay. You’d like to use a mineral clay because regular plain clay, like or montmiliorite. I’m sure I’m saying that wrong. Regular plain clay is okay, but clay will suck out minerals from your horse. And in a while, a few months, it’s going to deplete your horse of minerals. So if you can find a clay with minerals in it, that’s what you would like to do. Again, that’s going to coat the holes. This is not a cure, but it helps tremendously. This late with any little hole pain.

Renee (15:34)
Okay. So now we’re moving on to the hidden holes. The hidden holes are what starts this whole ulcer process. You won’t have big hole ulcers if you don’t have little holes. You won’t have little holes unless you have hidden holes. As I said earlier, hidden holes are microscopic. They’re really at the micro micrometer or micrometer level. So bigger than nanometer, but smaller than millimeter. So they’re very, very tiny. And they can be anywhere from just the stomach to the whole intestinal tract, including the hindgut, including the secum, the whole way there. We need to get rid of these hidden holes. First, what are these hidden holes caused by? Let me tell you. In 100% of the cases, hidden holes are caused by vaccinations. Now, you may need a moment to think about that. I know that I did. When I first learned about this, it took me a while to wrap my head around the fact that there are side effects to vaccines. I thought there were 100% safe. I thought the more the merrier, frankly, let’s protect our horse more. Nonetheless, vaccines have side effects, and one of them is ulcers. Now, I’m going to table on about proof blah, blah, blah.

Renee (17:00)
I believe it’s best for everyone to do their own research because there’s a saying, A man can miss against his will is of the same opinion still. So I’ll just tell you that, as I mentioned at the start, such a huge majority of our horses have horses, and such a huge majority of our horses are vaccinated. And Conversely, in every population of horses, not including the wild horses, I don’t have data on wild horses. I’m talking about domesticated horses in herds that do not get vaccinated ever. You don’t know what the percentage of ulcers is in them? Zero. So you have high percentage of vaccinations, you got a high percentage of ulcers. You have zero vaccinated, you get zero ulcers. To me, that’s enough reason to start researching. And then the next reason is that you can fix this problem and not have any causes of ulcers stuck in your horse. You won’t need any medication, you won’t need any herbal products, blah, blah, blah. You will be fixed, okay? But if the horse is revaccinated, they all come back again. So that’s enough proof for me, and I like to tell you how to fix them.

Renee (18:33)
If you have hidden holes, which any vaccinated horse does, then you need to get rid of the cause of those hidden holes. A couple of ways I’m aware of One is homeopathy. You need a veterinary who can do homeopathy. There is also vibrational remedies, which is similar to homeopathy. That can also clear them out. There may be other holistic methods that I am unaware However, what I have done is I’ve created an energy product. I’m sorry that this is a sales thing. Honestly, I am. But I wanted to fix this stuff. So I used my TBT energy method, and I have focused it, that energy, into some herbs that also help with ulcers in general. So it’s a tiny bit of herbs and a whole lot of energy, which will release all the causes of those hidden holes from your horse. Usually takes one to two months. That’s it. Now, the cause of hidden holes are done. Now, don’t just go buy it. Listen, if your horse already has little or big holes. It needs to be a process, because your horse’s whole system is involved in healing little holes and big holes. The liver, the kidneys, everything is shifted in order to try working on these.

Renee (20:02)
So may I suggest that you get my PDF report, which has a step-by-step chart and a care plan, because if you have big hole ulcers, you still need medication. Yes, product will get rid of the hidden holes, but you have a hole that’s bleeding. So there’s different levels of this thing, and it can be… It just needs a little bit more precision than just, Hey, the Just give me this one. Just give me this product. That’ll work. Not necessary. If you have had your horse vaccinated and you want to clear out the hidden holes and you don’t think you have ulcers at the moment, then feel free to get my product, which is called TBT Ulcer Revival. The link’s in the description, and it’ll be good. Now, if you have a whole already know your horse has ulcers, and I am sorry to hear about that, you’re going to want to start in a different order, depending on what’s going on. So there’s five different care plans in the PPA report, depending on what’s going on. So for this podcast, I just want to tell you the cause. The cause is stuff in the vaccines, which causes hidden holes.

Renee (21:23)
Hidden holes over time become little holes, and those over time become big holes. Now, certainly, when you already have hidden holes or little holes, anything that exacerbates the body and stresses it out will make them bigger. So lack of hay available all the time, so all the stress, maybe the environment, maybe not having a buddy, little turnout, all those things that one can list that would be a stressor is what’s causing the hidden holes to turn into little holes, and the little holes turn into big holes. But if you did not have those hidden ones in the first place, stress would not cause ulcers. Stress doesn’t cause any disease process. In my opinion, stress only exacerbates problems that are already there. All right, I hope that makes sense. I want to tell you guys one bonus about one of the many items that are in the ingredients in ulcer medications. Plus, guys, they stick stuff in all of the supplements and the bag feeds. It’s a little tiny word that you may miss, and it’s called calcium carbonate. Calcium carbonate is in so much of our supplements. It may be at the top of the list, it may be at the bottom of the list of the ingredients.

Renee (23:04)
Either way, calcium carbonate, it’s essentially chalk. Well, chalk? What’s the big deal about chalk? Gosh, Dr. Tucker. Listen, calcium carbonate absorbs stomach acid. It may be in preventative ulcer treatments, which are what I call bull crap marketing. But anyways, I digress. Please watch out for calcium carbonate. It absorbs stomach acid. The horse is making the acid because it needs it to digest the food. As we already talked about, if horse does not have enough stomach acid, it will tell the brain, signal the body, change the settings to make more acid. Then you have too much acid. In maybe different parts of the intestinal systems. And then what? Too much acid plus hidden holes? More ulcers. So the point here is, check any supplements that you’re giving, and do not give calcium carbonate. It’s sucking up acid. Could you use it for big-hold ulcers for maybe the first five days while you’re trying to get them out of extreme pain? Yes. And then get back off it because you’re messing up all the acid settings. All right, that’s just one of many ingredients. Again, I do talk about that in my reports, which will be in the description below.

Renee (24:41)
And I wish you guys the best of luck. This is definitely fixable Horses should not have ulcers. I realize this can start a difficult, consterning conversation and cognitive dissonance and all that stuff. But we got to start talking about it. Horses will be most healthy and without ulcers if they are unvaccinated. And that’s the summary. And I’ll talk to you guys another time. All right. Have a good day. Bye-bye.

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