# Thiamine treatment for people and goats



## villager (Sep 8, 2010)

I am a bit puzzled about the apparent difference in the amount of thiamine needed to treat people and goats.

Here in the African sticks we do not have a great choice of veterinary drugs. Last week at a local pharmacy I was excited to find vitamin-B complex, even though it was in tablet form. I bought a couple of hundred, because I sometimes see short-term, neurological symptoms in my goat kids. The composition of each tablet is given as:

thiamine hydrochloride (vit B-1) BP: 1 mg
riboflavin (vit B-2) BP: 1 mg
nicotinamide BP: 15 mg

When taken by *people *as a treatment, the dose for these tablets is 2 tablets every 8 hours. That is only 6 mg of thiamine per day.

Now, from a search here, I see that if a *goat* is to be treated with thiamine, the dose is 10 mg/kg, initially injected IM, then SC, and finally can be administered orally, repeated every 6 hours. So, for a 50 kg (110 lb) goat that is 500 mg every 6 hours, for a total of 2400 mg per day.

Can anyone comment on the apparent difference in the doses for people and goats? Maybe I have my sums wrong. Does it make sense to make 1 mg thiamine tablets for people?

If these tablets really contain only 1 mg of thiamine, then I would have to give a 50 kg goat 500 of them every 6 hours, which of course is absurd.


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## liz (Oct 5, 2007)

Goats have an extremely high metabolism and need those high doses often so that it "sticks" in their system...otherwise they would break it down too fast and eliminate it.

The human tablets are better than not treating at all...If you can get a straight B-1 supplement it will have a minimum of 50mg of Thiamine. I have crushed these, dissolved in a bit of warm water and drenched the goat.
At your location, are you able to use the benefits of shopping online? There are a number of animal product sites that have an injectible Fortified B Complex that would be more beneficial to your goats.


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## villager (Sep 8, 2010)

Thanks Mrs Liz for that reply.

I do sometimes find interesting stuff to buy on-line, and contact my relatives in Canada or UK to have it purchased and sent out here.

My internet connection is miserably slow, so I would appreciate a link to the injectible, fortified B complex, or at least to a supplier whose website I can search.

Ta


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