05/28/2025
🚩🚩Red Flag alert!!🚩🚩🚩
This ad disturbs me for a few reasons..
🚩1) GERD and ZES have never been reported in horses. These are human gastric conditions. That instils a lot of confidence in this company already, right? If horses could get GERD (which is a reflux disease due to low tone of the cardiac sphincter) they would be able to vomit. 🤮 And boy would that make our lives easier! (But they can't)
🚩2) Omeprazole sold to treat disease is a PERSCRIPTION item. This is not an FDA approved medication!! There is no grantee that there is ANY omeprazole actually IN this product!
🚩3) Instructions say "give 1/2 to 1 full tube daily." That's a huge range. Because when they know it has all the therapeutic benefit of Elmer's glue, accurate dosing doesn't really matter, right? 🙃
Yes, I know GastroGard and UlcerGard are not cheap, at ALL. So why do we veterinarians insist that they be used when treating gastric ulcers? Is it because we are getting kickbacks from the company? (I wish... hit me up BI, I'm for sale 😘) No, it's because it's the ONLY THING THAT ACTUALLY RELIABLY WORKS.
Here's the thing with omeprazole.. the drug itself is pretty cheap to manufacture. HOWEVER- it also is broken down by stomach acid very easily. And in order to get a therapeutic dose the drug needs to make it through the stomach acid to get absorbed in the small intestine. The MOST important part of GastroGard is the gastric buffer that the omeprazole is packaged in. *This* is what makes GastroGard so effective, and also so expensive.
Making FDA approved, research supported, quality products is not cheap. And let's be honest, horses in general are not cheap! 🤑🐴 You spend SO much money on your horse, and they do SO much for you... why would you cheap out on them when it comes to keeping them comfortable and out of pain..? 🤔
