Hi Andrea,

I presume you had Paddy's blood tested at Cambridge - The Hormone Lab?

Yes the bloods went to CSLS, I did request that they went to Liphook but the vet assured me that Cambridge ran the same procedure and used the same ref ranges etc as Liphook. Realised when I tried to compare Paddy's >600 pg/mL to Liphook's mean PPID ACTH levels that something wasn't quite adding up! *angry mad face*

If not, then yes without a doubt Paddy's ACTH is far too high, and I would increase his pergolide - you don't even know how high his ACTH actually is, it could be far higher than 600 pg/ml.

Completely agree and said the same to vet this morning but he apparently doesn't believe in high doses.

I would also say that his insulin is above normal - I believe it has been mentioned on here that some labs in the USA have results approx. 2 x higher than Cornell, so perhaps this is similar with Cambridge. But nonetheless you are looking for an insulin result <20 uIU/ml according to most vets, and ideally <10 uIU/ml. And his glucose is right at the top of the normal range given, and over 100 mg/dl.

So should we be looking at putting him on metformin in the interim or just increase the pergolide in an attempt to gain control of the IR?



Lorna, I said to vet this morning that there are horses on large doses of pergolide but he insisted that he believes it's not necessary... I am going to speak to senior partner on monday and get him to look at results and put a few things to him, including info from here, I will at least direct him here.

I just can't understand why vet doesn't want to increase it, we've proved he's got PPID with these bloods, which this vet had to persuade me to run when I just wanted to try increasing pergolide in the first place, so now we've done that he just wants to sit back and watch the horse?!
He doesn't consider that Paddy is at real risk of laminitis and I don't really know what I can do to convince him otherwise... but I'm really not prepared to risk it when we CAN increase the pergolide and at least go some way to lessening the chances. Hopefully I'll get somewhere with other vet on monday.

Andrea - am hoping someone has some idea as to the differing lab normal ranges, would be interested to know what lab has to say if no one here has any ideas.


Thank you both, am glad to have it confirmed that I'm not worrying over nothing, although wish I was!

Robyn and Paddy
Sept 2011, UK

Case History:
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ECHistory5/files/Robyn%20-%20UK/
Photos:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ECHistory5/photos/album/823009075/pic/list