80% of Horses Have Kissing Spine...

[marieshorses]

Cold backed means it doesn't like you sitting on it when you first get on. Some dip or wriggle unless you ride in a light seat. Some buck you off. And everything in between.

I've had three. The first had kidney failure, the second a very weak back and had been ridden by too heavy a rider, the third had kissing spines. I believe it is always connected with pain.

Can you tell us what country you are in? Cold backed is a commonly understood term in the UK.

So it sounds like "cold backed" can mean a variety of issue in the back, not just kissing spine. I've heard the term used in both UK and USA. I'm European, currently living in Europe and overseas.

 

[ycbm]

So it sounds like "cold backed" can mean a variety of issue in the back, not just kissing spine. I've heard the term used in both UK and USA. I'm European, currently living in Europe and overseas.

Cold backed is a symptom of many problems, not any kind of diagnosis.

There is plenty of stuff online on vet sites and horse sites abbot back issues. It sounds like you need to go and do a lot of background reading before you focus in on kissing spines. Otherwise, we'll be here for a year educating you about common horse terms. Not that any of us mind helping.

 

[Blurr]

Really interesting discussion. I just wish Ester itched less and said more

With regard to the racing TB, I think the breeding programme in which 'fast' was the preferred trait (albeit it was actually winners that were bred from and not all winners are fast, just faster than the slowest), over the generations produced a particular angle of hind limb and pelvis as a side effect and is the reason for fillies being routinely caslicked to prevent infection. I wonder if that angle has contributed to the dorsal spinous process crowding?

I have a TB mare that was operated on for KS. Successful operation but mental damage had already gone too far. She's now a happy pet.

 

[Blurr]

So it sounds like "cold backed" can mean a variety of issue in the back, not just kissing spine.

Yeh, cold backed and kissing spine are not synonymous. (Not) Unlike bacteria and viruses

 

[ester]

I don't think anyone in my life has ever suggested I should say more .

I was an attempt to try and limit my blood pressure at bedtime , and not wanting to derail the thread too much.

I will reiterate, particularly as the OP is in europe that there are probably a lot more people having had non-symptomatic horses xrayed than here because of different Pre purchase exam and insurance set ups.

 

[Notimetoride]

I suspect it's the same scenario as the 'navicular changes' found in lots of horses at pm. Most of the horses had no symptoms.

I was given a horse that had previously been sold, but the vetting highlighted navicular (therefore unable to sell). I willingly took on this fabulous horse knowing his navicular one day would catch up with him. It never did - I had him for about 10 years and he was pts at 17 for totally unrelated reasons !

 

[marieshorses]

Cold backed is a symptom of many problems, not any kind of diagnosis.

There is plenty of stuff online on vet sites and horse sites abbot back issues. It sounds like you need to go and do a lot of background reading before you focus in on kissing spines. Otherwise, we'll be here for a year educating you about common horse terms. Not that any of us mind helping.

I think you're missing my entire point and why I have come to a forum asking questions about kissing spine. I'd like to know what the regular horse owner knows about kissing spine or issues within the cervical/back. There is amassed data on spinal issues in equines, usually postmortem.

 

[marieshorses]

I don't think anyone in my life has ever suggested I should say more .

I was an attempt to try and limit my blood pressure at bedtime , and not wanting to derail the thread too much.

I will reiterate, particularly as the OP is in europe that there are probably a lot more people having had non-symptomatic horses xrayed than here because of different Pre purchase exam and insurance set ups.

This discussion raised your blood pressure? Wow, I'm so sorry...

 

[marieshorses]

Yeh, cold backed and kissing spine are not synonymous. (Not) Unlike bacteria and viruses

Bacteria and viruses are treated in sync with each other if you're versed in modern infectious diseases. Go ahead and ridicule--it's perfectly fine with me.

 

[ester]

in-synch is not in anyway the same as saying something is synonymous! A point which I made earlier to clarify for you.

And no it didn't raise my blood pressure... that was my point :rolleyes3:

 

[cobgoblin]

Bacteria and viruses are treated in sync with each other if you're versed in modern infectious diseases. Go ahead and ridicule--it's perfectly fine with me.

Synchronous is different to synonymous.

 

[ycbm]

I think you're missing my entire point and why I have come to a forum asking questions about kissing spine. I'd like to know what the regular horse owner knows about kissing spine or issues within the cervical/back. There is amassed data on spinal issues in equines, usually postmortem.

I don't think you've made you point at all clearly, but that may be because English is not your first language, I don't know.

I am confused whether you want to learn from us or whether you are questionning us to see how much we know. And I am even more confused by this latest answer of yours.

You want to know how much we know? Why? This sounds more and more like a fishing expedition where we are being used a guinea pigs in a research project without proper disclosure.

If it's not, can you please either do your own research about the basics of back issues or ask more specific questions about what you want answers to?


PS I'm going outside now to pick some more mushrooms.

 

[JFTDWS]

In which case I suggest you stop asking for 'opinions' including those from vets and start with a pubmed search

Please, for the love of god, this...

I've always felt the best field studies are generated in social conversations or observations--even without fundamental understanding of science.

You may feel that. It's not really borne out in the scientific world, though, and your repetition of qualitative concepts will only obscure decent, quantitative, scientific analysis...

I thought with viruses it was that they get inside cells so drugs cannot 'kill' them without also killing the cells ? That and of course they are clever but bacteria mutate too; just look at all the antibiotic resistance stuff.

Many bacteria also survive inside of host cells during infection. It is a huge factor in accessibility for the drug, certainly, but this isn't an insurmountable problem - we have drugs for TB, which survives inside of human immune cells in the lungs, for example. Antibiotics target parts of the bacterium which don't exist in viruses - this is why antibiotics don't work against viruses.

Bacteria are, at a molecular level, fairly different to animal cells, so it's relatively easy to find something to target and break/block in them, which doesn't exist in the host animal cell. Viruses often hijack animal cell molecular machinery, and have fewer specific viral molecules, so there's less to target that won't ****** up the host cell too. That, coupled with the high mutation rate makes viruses hard to design drugs against (although antivirals do exist and they do work in - very loosely - the same sort of manner as antibiotics: by targeting a pathogen's molecule and neutralising it).

Thanks for sharing. Viruses and bacterium are often synonymous, for example: bacteriophages are viruses that infect bacteria. Anyhow, I'm sure this is now off-topic! ;-)

Ye gods... I've heard it all now...

 

[cobgoblin]

Ye gods... I've heard it all now...

Do you want the mushrooms or the acid?
The schools have gone back haven't they?

 

[JFTDWS]

Do you want the mushrooms or the acid?
The schools have gone back haven't they?

Both, I think the doors of perception need to be well and truly cleansed after this one!

 

[ester]

Bacteria and viruses are treated in sync with each other if you're versed in modern infectious diseases. Go ahead and ridicule--it's perfectly fine with me.

Please don't suggest that some very learned members are not versed in infectious diseases when you are making completely incorrect statements (and this is not a matter of disagreeing, or a difference of opinion, it is just incorrect). It is quite rude when people are trying to help you with your understanding - whether that be language-based or not. We are well used to and very happy to help people out and explain things if confusion occurs but less so when you start making judgements about people whose qualifications you know nothing of.

To a certain extent I would also advise caution if you are hoping to target 'ordinary horse owners'. Compared to other forums this board does tend towards those with a certain level of knowledge, experience and understanding, and if people don't have that knowledge to start with they often acquire it as they go along because unlike other boards it is rare that incorrect statements will be allowed to stand uncorrected or unchallenged. Rightly so given how high the forum comes up on google.

It will also irk some people who like to help if they are presented with some very definite questions to answer if the person later then says they only wished to invite discussion. Much better to say you would like a discussion about it in the first instance as changing goal posts can be frustrating when you realise you may have answered differently, or that your answers just generated more questions that were not anticipated.

 

[Rollin]

The thing is what would you do if you trail a horse, say eventer for an example, never had a days lameness completing at a decent height and scope for a bit more everything you ever wanted.
Flys through a five stage vetting but then you decide for back xrays and vet finds ks. Nothing big just a few touching so is that an instant fail? No one would have known it was there and you could have had the rest of his life with no issues what so ever or when horse is mid teens he starts to slow down and not feel right and then it's found.

Which is the right thing to do? X-ray and then walk away from a horse that is not symptomatic and a good chance of never being symptomatic or do what a lot of us do and just buy the horse in front of you knowing that anything can happen round the corner.

Is the reason that horse is not symptomatic because of the level of fittness and conditioning it's been kept in and then if it's dropped in its new home will that then start the process of it being symptomatic?

I hope some of that makes sense as I'm tired and my asthma has decided to come back out to play.

I had a horse investigated last year because he was sweating on his left shoulder when worked and Pro rider found him contracted on his right rein. We had him investigated for this reason only. He had never been lame, other than a knock in the field, two days box rest and a foot abscess, didn't knap buck rear etc. Clinic found mild' KS but did not x-ray his shoulder. We did ridden 'physo' for KS, x-rays a year were dramatic - NO KS. A second investigation with a sep. vet practice discovered the stiffness and sweating on his shoulder were caused by a rib fracture. We think he had an accident when away from home. The KS would never have been discovered had it not been for the referral for shoulder problem. Three investigations each 6 moths apart and horse is 100% sound. I was amazed at how much we improved his back with gentle exercise over two months.

 

[marieshorses]

Please don't suggest that some very learned members are not versed in infectious diseases when you are making completely incorrect statements (and this is not a matter of disagreeing, or a difference of opinion, it is just incorrect). It is quite rude when people are trying to help you with your understanding - whether that be language-based or not. We are well used to and very happy to help people out and explain things if confusion occurs but less so when you start making judgements about people whose qualifications you know nothing of.


To a certain extent I would also advise caution if you are hoping to target 'ordinary horse owners'. Compared to other forums this board does tend towards those with a certain level of knowledge, experience and understanding, and if people don't have that knowledge to start with they often acquire it as they go along because unlike other boards it is rare that incorrect statements will be allowed to stand uncorrected or unchallenged. Rightly so given how high the forum comes up on google.

It will also irk some people who like to help if they are presented with some very definite questions to answer if the person later then says they only wished to invite discussion. Much better to say you would like a discussion about it in the first instance as changing goal posts can be frustrating when you realise you may have answered differently, or that your answers just generated more questions that were not anticipated.

I did not go there with all the members, just one or two who seemed to engage after I suggested viral attributes to spinal degenerations in humans and equines.

I do not need to use caution when trying to learn about equine health through their owners . I've actually appreciated many of the members who gave me a case example of how they discovered kissing spine in their owned horse.

I asked in my original query if the forum had ever heard of such a thing: 80% of horses potentially have kissing spine. Albeit the original question was open-ended, but so is anything spinal related due to the lack of studies on healthy horses.

 

[marieshorses]

I had a horse investigated last year because he was sweating on his left shoulder when worked and Pro rider found him contracted on his right rein. We had him investigated for this reason only. He had never been lame, other than a knock in the field, two days box rest and a foot abscess, didn't knap buck rear etc. Clinic found mild' KS but did not x-ray his shoulder. We did ridden 'physo' for KS, x-rays a year were dramatic - NO KS. A second investigation with a sep. vet practice discovered the stiffness and sweating on his shoulder were caused by a rib fracture. We think he had an accident when away from home. The KS would never have been discovered had it not been for the referral for shoulder problem. Three investigations each 6 moths apart and horse is 100% sound. I was amazed at how much we improved his back with gentle exercise over two months.

Thanks for sharing your story. Did he have issues in the bridle/mouth?

 

[cyberhorse]

This is not just a KS issue. Many horses who are vetted and Xray'd have some of the most horrendous films of their legs and are often in high levels of competition with no past history of lameness or poor performance. Yet some horses who are not in advanced/heavy work are badly effected and unsound with Xrays that show only slight deviations from what would be considered a normal film. As has just been said above conditioning does have a roll to play and regular maintenance physio is desirable for all horses before minor issues become more problematic or compensation injuries occur. Humans are advised to improve our core if you suffer from chronic back pain, I was advised to do weights to improve knee pain which originated from the joint itself for the same reason - improve the musculature support. An x-ray is not a scan it only shows hard tissues not the musculo-skeletal system as a whole. Neither works in isolation. More recent advances have also given credence to the important role of the fascia in normal functionality.

It's not just horses where x-rays and symptoms do not correlate, it is common in human medicine too. For the physical change itself, we can also see patients who are really struggling to function and reporting high levels of pain who on arthroscopy of an effected join show very minor tears of cartilage for example and then others where the clinical picture is pretty horrendous have functioned fine for many years and report their symptoms as "a bit irritating occasionally". This subjectivity I do not believe is confined to humans. I have one horse who is an absolute drama queen at the least bit of a thing and another who has had an abscess burst at the heel after not even being 1/10 lame. You can guess which one I worry about more and have professionally checked more frequently.

As for bacteria and viruses please don't get me started on that one! (I should not be heading for the Gin this early in the day...) We have developed huge problems with antibacterial resistance which is, at least in part, due to them being inappropriately used to 'treat' infections which are viral. If anyone believes them to either a) be the same or b) be treated the same, then please could I can recommend some reading on Medical Microbiology for example Notes on Medical Bacteriology by Sleigh and Timbury. The confusion often arises from a misunderstanding of secondary infection or more complex pictures in the immunocompromised.

 

[marieshorses]

Please, for the love of god, this...



You may feel that. It's not really borne out in the scientific world, though, and your repetition of qualitative concepts will only obscure decent, quantitative, scientific analysis...



Many bacteria also survive inside of host cells during infection. It is a huge factor in accessibility for the drug, certainly, but this isn't an insurmountable problem - we have drugs for TB, which survives inside of human immune cells in the lungs, for example. Antibiotics target parts of the bacterium which don't exist in viruses - this is why antibiotics don't work against viruses.



Bacteria are, at a molecular level, fairly different to animal cells, so it's relatively easy to find something to target and break/block in them, which doesn't exist in the host animal cell. Viruses often hijack animal cell molecular machinery, and have fewer specific viral molecules, so there's less to target that won't ****** up the host cell too. That, coupled with the high mutation rate makes viruses hard to design drugs against (although antivirals do exist and they do work in - very loosely - the same sort of manner as antibiotics: by targeting a pathogen's molecule and neutralising it).


Ye gods... I've heard it all now...

I really would like to ask more questions here, but feel that I've annoyed some of the members in this forum. If you're open to engaging more on this topic--as it relates to the immune system of equines--could I possibly ask your opinion to further my knowledge before heading into the actual research?

 

[ester]

I didn't say you went there with all the members, I am suggesting that going there with any is not appropriate when they were engaging to correct an incorrect statement from a position of knowledge.

 

[daffy44]

I think you may have mistaken the level that most people on this forum are riding at. Most of us are simply leisure riders. I have competed affiliated and have friends who compete affiliated in almost every discipline, and I know of absolutely no-one who scans legs unless the horse had an issue.

I believe the reference to annual scans was in reply to my post in which I said that my horses legs were scanned annually as a preventative measure, my horses work at a high level, and I do scan annually as routine to hopefully prevent issues and also have an idea of wear and tear etc.

 

[ycbm]

I believe the reference to annual scans was in reply to my post in which I said that my horses legs were scanned annually as a preventative measure, my horses work at a high level, and I do scan annually as routine to hopefully prevent issues and also have an idea of wear and tear etc.

I realised that. I was responding to the OP's comment that annual scans were very important, and to point out to the OP that most people on here do not compete at a level where they would do annual scans. I thought s/he had some strange idea that because this is a forum of an internationally famous publication that we were all out brushing off our tailcoats every weekend

 

[Theocat]

I do not need to use caution when trying to learn about equine health through their owners ...

I asked in my original query if the forum had ever heard of such a thing: 80% of horses potentially have kissing spine. Albeit the original question was open-ended, but so is anything spinal related due to the lack of studies on healthy horses.

Lots of very patient people on this thread.

Anyway ... from my reading of this thread, I think you DO need to exercise caution, if you're trying to establish prevalence and causation of kissing spines by questioning owners, and especially if the interest was sparked in the first place by a study done on valuable sports horses that have been destroyed as a result of lameness. You're starting from a highly selective sample that's predisposed to a certain result, and by asking individuals for their experiences, you're only compounding that sample because typically only those with experience of KS will respond.

I may have misunderstood what you're after, though ...

 

[daffy44]

I realised that. I was responding to the OP's comment that annual scans were very important, and to point out to the OP that most people on here do not compete at a level where they would do annual scans. I thought s/he had some strange idea that because this is a forum of an internationally famous publication that we were all out brushing off our tailcoats every weekend

Yes, sorry, I appreciate that, to be fair, I dont know many people who do annual scans either, but I just mentioned it as a reference to that particular horses general health, as whilst I scan annually, I certainly dont do spinal xrays without believing there to be a problem!

 

[ycbm]

Yes, sorry, I appreciate that, to be fair, I dont know many people who do annual scans either, but I just mentioned it as a reference to that particular horses general health, as whilst I scan annually, I certainly dont do spinal xrays without believing there to be a problem!

When I went to view a horse at DHI, she told me that that x ray their competition horses leg joints annually. I think if you have horses competing at a very high level, that's very sensible. Like you, I know of no-one who x rays a spine unless there is a perceived problem. Though I do know of an event rider who had three four year olds vetted for purchase by him in 2016, and two were rejected for kissing spines.

I would like to see some research whether the modern breeding for movement has created more congenital kissing spines. My confirmed and a suspect cold backed horse were both extremely 'well bred' with passports littered with kűr and prestatie, and one GP sire and one by a son of Voltaire who died young.

I would also like to see some research about what causes kissing spines in a horse that isn't born with them.

The trouble is that there is probably no expensive drug to be marketed on the back of that research, so we may never see it, unless racing starts to find it an issue, maybe.

 

[rachk89]

The trouble is that there is probably no expensive drug to be marketed on the back of that research, so we may never see it, unless racing starts to find it an issue, maybe.

Well they do use expensive drugs to heal kissing spine but dunno if it was based on research from horses not born with it. The drug used on my horse is usually used on people for osteoarthritis though.

 

[ycbm]

Well they do use expensive drugs to heal kissing spine but dunno if it was based on research from horses not born with it. The drug used on my horse is usually used on people for osteoarthritis though.

Yes, I meant new drugs that aren't currently used. If they are already used, there's no advantage to drug companies in doing the research.

 

[Slightlyconfused]

I would like to see some research whether the modern breeding for movement has created more congenital kissing spines. My confirmed and a suspect cold backed horse were both extremely 'well bred' with passports littered with kűr and prestatie, and one GP sire and one by a son of Voltaire who died young.

I would also like to see some research about what causes kissing spines in a horse that isn't born with them.
.

I do think modern breeding has a part to play in some cases of ks.
I'm not an expert on totilas (sorry if that the wrong spelling but my head and auto correct are arguing) and his breeding but if you look at him and his offspring compared to say Charlotte's lovely grey thats being produced the confirmation and movement difference is very obvious.
I think not a lot of people when breeding some of these horses from "amazing" lines doenst matter what discipline don't actually look at the horses natural way of going and just go with "he is bred for the job" and that's it.


And also how do we know a horse isn't born with it. Someone can be born with osteoporosis but the boney changes don't actually appear until later on in life. Just like ankylosing spondilities (again very sorry for the spelling)

Does there need to be genetic research done to see if there is a genetic marker that predisposed horses to ks like there is are AS in humans?