Why couldn't I be born a hard keeper?

So in the last few weeks, Apollo dropped some weight. Nothing catastrophic, nothing Animal Cops-esque, but enough to make his already worrisome mother well....worry. We figured "it's bitter cold, lets up his TC Senior and see how he does." Then the feed store was out of alfalfa pellets, so he was missing his tummy-soothing third meal for nearly a week and a half. Then about a week ago, he stopped eating all of his hay. He would eat some, but for a horse his size and condition he wasn't eating nearly enough. He wasn't cleaning up his grain too well either (he's now up to 12lbs of TC senior per day plus 4 lbs of alfalfa pellets with one cup of canola oil.)

His weight on Sunday 3/16/14

View from the top with a random back bump that's going away (doesn't seem to cause him any problems)

I had a fecal run, and it came back great (it came back with the lowest reading possible that isn't 0.) The dreaded word came up.

Ulcers.

I treated him in January for them, but I used Gastromax3 for the last two weeks of treatment, and I'm not 100% sold on whether or not it works. I ordered a 6lb container of Rite Trac to see if it helped sooth his tummy--it would help hind gut ulcers as well (although he doesn't show any symptoms of that except for the weight loss.) It was taking forever and a half to arrive, and I almost had a meltdown last Sunday about his weight. I drove to Walmart and bought six bottles of generic human omeprazole. I had to do something. SOMETHING. Even if it didn't work. I had to do something right there right that second. I was too upset to even wait until the next day. Each bottle has 14 pills, and six days of treatment cost about $33 (as opposed to about $30/day with Ulcergard.) I also talked to my mother about what parasites might not show up in a fecal test, and it turns out tapeworms and pinworms don't show up? So I bought a tube of Equimax. For $13 I made myself feel better.

Wednesday rolls around, and I head to the barn, dewormer in hand. Our barn manager and trainer comes into the barn shortly after I deworm Apollo. She says to me, "He cleaned up all his hay last night! ALL of it!" She didn't have to take ANY out the next morning when she cleaned stalls. He had also inhaled his breakfast that morning. I was over the moon excited! He had been getting the omep. pills for three days, and he hadn't been dewormed until after he vacuumed his stall clean. Somehow these cheap-o general omep. pills from Walmart, which are at a much lower dose than a tube of Ulcergard, are working. I don't know how. I really don't. There is less medication in what I'm giving him. It's not designed for horses. It's totally affordable to treat him for as long as he needs it. He eats the pills in his "first dinner" with no issue. HOW IS IT WORKING???

I'm not sure, but I'm just going with it right now. He's oinking down all his meals and his hay, and he seems to be in good spirits (although he's always in a good mood.) Things are looking up, and the brutal winter finally broke. It's by no means warm out, but hey....it's above freezing.....