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Originally Posted by doll0608
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First of all most antibiotics take more than a few days to work. More than likely they are treating this horse with an antibiotic called baytril which can be given 5-7 days. Then yes of course you would want the horse to have some time after that for the horse to build up their immune system. It is all up to what the trainer and owner feel is the best for the horse. When we run a horse we usually scope them two works before they run to make sure they are clean and sometimes it can be as simple as a cycle of antibiotics and they are fine for the race.
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Again I am saying up front that I am limited by my zero patient base of the horse variety but thousands of humans treated albeit with reasonable success.
1) The "lag" your seeing is more a need to recover from the illness itself and not necessarily the antibiotic. Like any human who has pneumonia for example ....in order to get back in the gym or to run the distance you would normally work out at.....there is a period of rehabilitation from the weakness of the illness but not induced by the treatment of say a week of Levaquin.
2) Many times physicians stop antibiotics started in humans after a couple days when a) the suspected infection is more likely viral by clinical acumen as a couple days pass
b) the drugs seem like overkill for the illness which has improved more likely having run it's course
c) Very few antibiotic courses are that short(1-2 days) that treat to cure an infection in humans. Exceptions would be things like high dose flagyl for vaginal trichomonas which is given as a single dose (sorry for thos eating as they read this) or perioperative antibiotics given as prophalaxis for procedures.
It is more likely the horse didn't have an indication in the first place for antimicrobial care so having stopped them in a short period should do no harm because it didn't really help in the first place. The poor performance one sees is more likely due to a setback in aerobic performance with the illness.
Just the human perspective for what it is worth!!