Teeth Grinding!! HELP

My 6 year old Quarter Horse grinds his teeth constantly. His teeth are always trimmed and perfect. Its really getting annoying and I want to stop this because he scares people. Can anyone help me? Is there anything that I can do to stop this? PLEASE HELP!!!!

Teeth grinding is a sign of pain, usually a belly ache. But it can be caused by stress. I would have him checked by the vet if you haven't already to see if you can find out where his pain is coming from.

Vidaloco is right on target. Your horse is most likely has a chronic painful condition and one of the common ones with teeth grinding is ulcers. If your avatar is you and your horse then I can tell you that your horse is in a situation where the risk of ulcers is increases--hauling, training, competition setting.

Definitely talk to your vet.

http://www.thehorse.com/ViewArticle....stric%20ulcers

I found this article and it did say things about grinding of teeth, horses in training, and stress. And all of those things aply. I was thinking there is another pasture away from the other ones where there are a few run in stalls where 2 other horses are and I was thinking since its not as stressful up there maybe he could go up there. Its just the only thing is its a little dangerous up there specialy cuzz when I come up it gets dark pretty fast and I don't want to walk up there in the pitch black. Heres the article tell me what you think!

http://gastrogard.us.merial.com/equine_ulcers.asp

If it is ulcers, pasture turnout may help but it's not going to get rid of the problem. Ulcers will unfortunately continue to be a problem until you actually treat them.

Alright thanks. I am definiatly going to tell my instructor about ulcers today because I don't think she knows much about them. I also printed out a very good article about them.

Great idea. It's always easier to get people to pay attention when you have something to back up what you are saying.

Thanks for all your help! And I will let you know what happens when I inform my instructor about it! Thanks!

Hey guys. Well I had the owner of the barn talk to the dentist about the article I found and he said that he saw a horse that had stomach ulcers before and they gave the horse 4 pepto bismals 2 times a day with its food. Is that strange? Tell me what you think
Thanks

While pepto may help ease the pain associated with ulcers, it is far from a treatment especially with only dosing twice a day. Antacids would need to be dosed every 2-3 hours to be effective at maintaining lower acidity in the stomach to allow ulcers to heal.
Ranitidine or cimetidine may be given to treat ulcers, but they still need to be dosed every 6-8 hours without fail to maintain a constant lower acidity in the stomach. The easiest treatment to actually allow the ulcers to heal is Gastroguard (omeprazole) given once a day, the drawback is that it's expensive.

But unless you actually TREAT the ulcers appropriately they do not heal and they can continue to worsen due to the lifestyle of the horse.


Question: why is an equine dentist diagnosing and prescribing treatment for ulcers? Is he a veterinarian as well?