Thanks for all of the input!! Ed(he has a registered name, but I call him Ed) was in his stall when he broke his jaw. We have NO CLUE how he did it...the vet was stumped too. I checked the horses in the afternoon and Ed had bloody saliva and drool hanging from his mouth. My husband and I opened his mouth and we couldn't see his bottom teeth. We called our vet and then our daughter(Ed's Owner) who was on her way home from Ohio State University where she majors in Animal Sciences. Ed has adapted well. He gets turned out with an older gelding and tries to graze. He eats his chopped hay and small amount of wet pellets with no problems. His water bucket has to be changed several time daily as hay that gets trapped under his lip gets the water nasty. He looks and acts normal.

I have IBS-D and got a prescription for Welchol, which actually is a cholesterol lowering drug, but was found to help cancer patients having severe diarrhea due to chemo and radiation treatments. It has worked for me along with taking very potent probiotics. However, now my insurance won't cover it and the alternatives they suggest, do not contain the same ingredients. I've been eating two little dark chocolate Mounds bars daily and find it gives me the needed fiber to bulk the stool. A friend takes Metamucil twice a day. I hope you can find what has been working for you.

Sounds like it could be thyroid. On the other hand, I have my thyroid checked every six months now that I take thyroid supplements, (it's fine) and my immune system was crap this winter even though I did every thing imaginable. As for herbs and vitamins, be careful. You may be taking a placebo, very difficult to determine if the active ingredient in the supplement is actually present. Most of the time I doubt it. Would be best to grow your own, but even then, chemical composition varies. With vitamins, it is whether your body can even absorb what you are taking, many things cancel each other out, like asprin/acetominophin and vit. C, for just one example. Calcium and iron for another. Same with foods, vitamin content can drop dramatically when they've bee sitting around or upon cutting them open, etc. Other than what has been mentioned, (hydration, CLEAN humidifier, hand washing, etc.) with the cautionary note about "caveat emptor" (know your sources, freshness, interactions, etc.) another supplement I have had good luck with is lysine. Lastly, lots of sleep, a diet RICH in whole foods, lots of fruits and vegetables, and SOUP. I don't know if soup makes the vitamins in the ingredients extra absorbable or what, but soup along with other hot liquids helped me finally expel the last of the flu lingering in my lungs. I got a flu shot but it didn't stop the flu from laying me low for two months. Vit. D helps too during the low sunshine times, but it is tricky to get it absorbed. Stay away from alcohol.

Due to dual blood thinner therapy, I can no longer take Advil or extra aspirin or things like Celebrex for my RA, migraines or post stroke centralized pain and CBD is not orally recommended with warfarin and I have to be careful with transdermal treatments as well so I explored other chronic pain treatments and found that many studies show that eating more fiber acts as a prebiotic (which are more helpful long term than taking probiotics) that will lower the antibodies and inflammation that cause most diseases like lupus, diabetes, many cancers and RA. I also found many studies linking stress reduction therapies, ACT ( a form of cbt for chronic pain ) and daily moderate exercise to lower inflammation levels and thus pain reduction. I have since my stroke started a practice of eating 40 grams of fiber per day, walking a minimum of thirty minutes daily and meditating fifteen minutes every morning when I wake at 5:45 and again as I fall asleep at 9:45. I see a therapist weekly for Acceptance and commitment therapy and emdr( eye movement desensitization reprocessing) for PTSD and I no longer notice my pain at alll. Pain is preceived by our brains and we can dampen that part of our brain with training instead of with CBD, pot and opioids ( which work by altering the part of the brain that senses pain). In addition to pain management I also have become serum negative for RA, lupus and antiphospholipid syndrome. My CRP and sed rate have lowered significantly and I wake up awake and I no longer suffer from my severe anxiety disorder and depression. Fiber, exercise and meditation have changed my life and I only regret that it took two strokes for me to start on this path to a better life.