Advice please DDFT lesions poss neurectomy

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pinkpixie

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Hi
Was wondering if anyone has experience of the following:
My horse was diagnosed last year with lesions on his DDFT and changes to the navicular bone. He had an injection of cortasteroid to try and get rid of the lesions also had wedges fitted. Following months of box rest he was a lot better but not 100%.
Since increasing his workload the lameness has returned worse and he is due to go back to the hospital for nerveblocking again to confirm its the same issue. After speaking to the vet today i have been given a number of options:
1-Long term bute and retirement
2-Neurectomy
3-Repeat the injection given last year
4-PTS
I have no idea what to do he isnt a horse that will take that well to retirement, I really dont think either of us can deal with much more box rest (he turned into a lunatic last year and was dangerous to handle) due to lack of turnout at the yard he has hardly had any since May last year (boxrest then v limited winter turnout) and i cant seem to get my head round a neurectomy. Would really appreciate any experience anyone has regarding this??
Thanks and sorry for the long post
 
You have another option of which your vet should by now be aware and I despair that we still have not got the message out there, which is a barefoot rehab. I have one and there are dozens of others, who were given up on by their vets and farriers after multiple medical and shoeing treatments.

Check out rockleyfarm.co.uk and rockleyfarm.blogspot.com for details and pictures of written off horses that are now in full work hunting and jumping.

It is my belief that a neurectomy is completely unjustified in a horse which has not been tried shoeless.

Do not allow anyone to tell you that your horse has such flat/thin/poor feet that he cannot possibly manage without shoes. However bad your horse is, one of us will show you pictures of one of ours that was worse. My rehab, who has now been sound for a year and jumps, came to me with xrays of soles 3.5mm thick, navicular bone changes, lame for over a year in spite of treatment, and feet so soft I could bend them with my fingers.

Your horse can probably be saved, the stats on recovery to full work are very good.

Come on everyone, tell this poor girl about your hunting, hacking, competing ddft/navicular write-offs :)
 
Hi pinkpixie, my mare had the same sort of injury as yours. She had a tear to her DDFT within her hoof and this was found by having an MRI scan after much guesswork. She had the box rest, wedges in her shoes, then egg bar shoes. Her work was all in hand, then ridden work whilst stabled as like yours, winter turnout was restricted. We did lots of walking and then a little trot work and shes now in normal shoes and stayed sound, her injury was back in 2009. She also had an injection into her navicular bursa as there was some inflammation there, she had this repeated last April (originally had it in the January) and was turned out fully in May last year. My vet talked to me about a neurectomy and being a lameness expert at the Horsepital where she was referred, I would have gone along with any recommendation he made. We didnt have to go down that route though in the end. Since her injury I have been very careful where I ride her and we dont go in the school anymore. She cannot go without shoes, my Farrier is an excellent one and works with the vets and I trust his advice completely.

The box rest can cause adhesions to form which are like scar tissue and they do break down over time. I do think my horse suffered these to some extent even though we followed the rehab advice to the letter. However, shes come through it all and shes been sound for some time now - that is until she ran round the field about 6 weeks ago and injured her opposite front leg. Shes back on box rest for now but its nowhere near as bad as last time. This time shes got a small tear and I mean small, to her SDFT. Shes having a re-scan next week and all being well will be able to be turned out again. I think its a Mad March thing with her and as soon as shes able, I am moving her to a place where she can live out 24/7.

Good luck with your horse and I hope the above helps. x
 
Damn it CP - you beat me to it!

Really worth putting a call into Nic Barker down at Rockley Farm and having a chat with her - she can tell you all about Project Dexter and the work she does.
 
I have a horse with Impar ligament damage & has adhesions on the DDFT, his prognosis is guarded.

I took my boy's shoes off in September last year & he has made significant improvements since going barefoot. I myself will never consider a neurectomy.

I took my boy off box rest in Jan as neither of us could cope any longer, the box rest was causing my boy real health issues. We took the decision along with my vets appoval to T/O in a small pen, he has been penned during the day now ever since.
I now have him under saddle but only hacking & straight line work in walk with a tiny amount of trot being introduced.

Unfortunately i forgot to turn the Electric on the other day & he broke out of his pen & hooned around:(. He did go very slightly lame but it was nothing compared to what it would of been had it happen last year.

If i where you i would definitely look into the Barefoot route, Rockley farm are not the only Barefoot experts out there. I could never go down the Rockley route with my boy as he would end up PTS due to there T/O idea's. But it does work for some just not for horses like mine.
 
Thanks everyone for your responses he was actually barefoot and had been for some time when all this happened last may.
I can understand how barefoot helps for navicular problens but unsure how it helps for adhesions between the DDFT and navicular bone.:confused:
Dressgae crazy i know where you are coming from with the box rest i have made that decision in my head that i cant do anything that will require a significant amount of box rest the poor lad has been on and off it for 12mths and i just dont think its fair. he had also started to get very depressed on it and turned into a raving lunatic when i started to rehab him for personal reasons i just cant do the rehab again.
It is just so hard i cant see the point of repeating the treamtnet from last year (inj of steroid) as that never really worked i cant get my head round neurectomy it just feels wrong to me (although i can understand why people do it). I also have to take into consideration his age he is at least 16 poss older but from a selfish point of view if i retire him i cant ride he will have to be on painrelief as is very lame in field and there are costs implications as from may i wont be insured.
I think i need to kow if it is degenrative (sp) and if so how bad is it likely to get and how quickly.
sorry for the long post i am just going round in circles in my head :(
 
Can i just ask how long you did the walking stage for of his rehab??

Barefoot doesnt really help for the Adhesions imho, what does help is controlled consistent exercise over a long period. Box rest actually can make adhesions worse, my boy went through various stages of lameness & we think this was due to the adhesions breaking we wont know though until another MRI is performed. Barefoot has help my boy with the concusive side of the problem though, he is now growing the foot he needs & it is helping. It also helps that being barefoot we can boot & pad him as he needs it, when he needs it.

Im looking at slowly upping my boy's work in a controlled way over a minimum of a year max 2 years. If he can't cope & is still going lame at the 2 year point he will be partially retired or possibly PTS if it worsens & we really have no more roads to go down.

Can you do controlled T/O at all?? I cannot see Box rest helping him much more at this point, i would personally be trying controlled T/O i.e small pen & pain relief for a while, then i would evaluate again after a month.
 
I am trying to remember think the walking was approx 8 wks started off 10mins and then very gradually built up to 40mins.
Last time i tried him on restricted turnout he kept going mental so decided it was doing less damage him going out with 2 v quiet horses and being more peaceful whilst he was out.
After the rehab last year he came 99% sound and the uneveness that was left was v intermitent and improved with work. It has only been as i have increased his workload (not to anything drastic) that he has gone v lame again. At the moment he is barefoot again with boots on for turnout.
I suppose i am thinking if he is this bad again is he going to keep getting worse? Am i just putting off the inevitable?

x
h
 
I started my Walking mine in hand in November & have gradually built up time we are still walking now 6 months on.
Im afraid it's one of those things that they may never come right from, it kind of is luck of the draw.

All i can say is that patience & time can be a great healer, im taking everything so slowly with my boy it's un-true but it seems to be helping. It's heartbreaking though when they do go lame again as has happened to mine a few times during the walking stage. But i just somehow manage to pick myself up & continue as it's still such early days in his recovery.
 
dressagecrazy said:
If i where you i would definitely look into the Barefoot route, Rockley farm are not the only Barefoot experts out there. I could never go down the Rockley route with my boy as he would end up PTS due to there T/O idea's. But it does work for some just not for horses like mine.
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I think you need to have this post removed by the moderator because it could be libellous. I have no vested interest, moneywise or any other way, in Rockley but you cannot say that your horse would have to be put to sleep if it went to Rockley, that is simply outrageous.

You have no idea how Rockley would have treated your particular horse as they treat every horse as an individual once they have it in their care and can judge what it needs and can cope with. You are in no position to state what kind of horses that Rockley's methods work with.

And amongst the 20 and more written off horses who have been restored to working lives by Rockley, I'll eat my hat if they haven't recovered one with worse prognosis than yours. No horse that has been there for 12-16 weeks has failed to leave substantially sounder than it arrived.

OP not all barefoot is the same. Rockley farm treated a barefoot horse last year with very serious collateral ligament damage. It had been barefoot, but not in the right way, and it lacked strong heels and supportive frogs. It developed these under the regime it was given at Rockley and is now, I believe, sound and doing well. There is barefoot and there is barefoot.
 
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Goodness me, it certainly wasn't meant in a nasty way. God sake this forum is getting pathetic, feel free to push the button as I won't be contributing anymore.

What I was trying to say is this forum very often decides what works & what doesn't, there are many roads to Rome. How on earth do you know I don't know anything about Rockley!! After all is it only you who knows!

You have no idea of how my horse is, or how he would cope. I'm sorry if I don't follow the forums ( or your ) decided method of barefoot rehab!
 
I know that you have no idea how your horse would have coped at Rockely because each horse that goes there has an individual treatment plan which can only be created after they have seen the horse in their possession. Unless yours has been there, in which case tell us that they failed with it, you can have no idea whether they would succeed with him or not. But there is not one horse so far that they have not sent home much sounder than it arrived after around 12- 16 weeks, and that includes many horses which were at the end of multiple treaments and recommended for retirement or euthenasia.
 
You no a lot don't you!
you know nothing why should I post anything about me or my horse when I've been jumped on already, Thanks for that!

No wonder BF gets a bad rep when those who are already BF are so vicious to others who are also BF. I only posted on this thread to try to help & support, god knows I've been well put through the mill myself. But no more posting for me I've got better things to do, than to be talked down to by a total stranger!
 
Here we go with the Barefoot Brigade upsetting people again.!! Each and every horse is an individual and Im sorry but my vet and Farrier at the time of my mares problem got it absolutely right with her, she is well and has had no further problems with her DDFT. There are ways of putting points across and unfortunately the usual people who contribute to these type of threads seem to think that their way is the only way.

OP - keep an open mind and dont rush anything. Speak at length with your vets and explore every avenue. I hope your horse recovers as well as mine did from her injury. Now we have to sort out the latest problem she has, and it will get sorted. Good luck with your horse, you deserve it!x
 
I love it. A poster says that Rockley Farm would have caused her horse to have to be put down and "The Barefoot Brigade" are accused of upsetting people because I point out that this is libellous. Priceless, you couldn't make it up!
 
Izzwizz said:
Im sorry but my vet and Farrier at the time of my mares problem got it absolutely right with her, she is well and has had no further problems with her DDFT.
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Your first post:
"Since her injury I have been very careful where I ride her and we dont go in the school anymore. "

You call that "well and having no further problems"? Most of the rehabs done barefoot by people on this forum and at Rockley are in full work without restriction, returning to hunting and jumping. We are trying to suggest to people that they can get a better solution than that and your response is to say that we think our way is the only way? It feels like the other way around to me, with you insisting that you have got the best possible result for your mare when we can show you example after example who were sounder after 3 months barefoot than your mare is after 2 years of conventional treatment.

If you are happy with your vet and farrier advice then that's fine, but you won't stop me from telling the original poster and anyone else reading that there is a very promising alternative way of treating foot lameness.
 
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My horse and my choice where I ride her and not dictated to me by anyone.!!!

Same old same old from you my dear whoever you are. .......
 
I am my logon, who are you???? I somehow doubt that your passport has Izzwizz in it, so who are you then?

Why do you infer that by giving advice to the original poster this is anything to do with anyone trying to dictate anything to you?

Do what you want. You can even continue to be rude to me in your vain attempt to stop me telling other people that there are options open to them that their vets and farriers may not know about, but it won't work.
 
dressagecrazy said:
If i where you i would definitely look into the Barefoot route, Rockley farm are not the only Barefoot experts out there. I could never go down the Rockley route with my boy as he would end up PTS due to there T/O idea's. But it does work for some just not for horses like mine.
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Hi

My horse is one of the ex rockley horses and although I am biased I do have to say your post did come across as slightly dramatic.
It makes it sound like there are some bizarre turnout practices happening down on Exmoor which is a little unfair.
They may not be only barefoot experts but they are currently the only ones offering that type of rehab, I say currently as I'd love it if there were similar places all over the country so owners do not have to travel their horses so far but there aren't and we can't all offer the best facilities and all the time needed to do it at home.


Izzwhizz I'm sure your vet and farrier did a fantastic job but if you look at some of the research then you can see that you have been one of the lucky ones.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.2042-3306.2010.00081.x/abstract

I can't log in to see the details but I understand that it breaks down to

"78% of the horses with DDFT lesions failed to return to work; 83% of the horses who had collateral sesamoidean ligament damage failed to return to work. "


With damage to both ddft and collateral ligaments ( as well as DSIL and inflamed navicular bursa) in both feet I wasn't so lucky and Frankie didn't respond to the same approach and it sounds like the OP has not been so lucky either which is why they are considering de nerving.


Frankie also went crazy on box rest and when he was brought back into work I could keep him just about sound for light hacking. However, when turned out he would hoon around and come in crippled on three legs so retirement was not even an option and I was not happy to keep him in for "23 hours a day so I had something rideable for 1" to quote a very respected farrier.

At Rockley he was turned out on a field and track system which helped speed up the rehab process together with the work which was gradually built up. Together with getting the nutrition right and minimal/sympathetic trimming this approached worked for him.

It may not work for you but it did for me and it is something to look into at least.
 
Have you tried EKYFlex? Its a brand new supplement for tendon and ligament repair after injury, its only just available in this country so your vet may now have come across it yet.
 
Thank you everyone for your replies
He is going to horse hospital on wed to be nerve blocked and i have also asked for him to be xrayed to see if there has been further deteriation to the navicular bone. Once i know that i feel as though i will be in a better position to make a decision.

One more question though i can understand how barefoot will help navicual but how can it help adhesions to break down?? The DDFT has healed fine but has left adhesions between that and the bone which is causing the pain.
 
There are people much more expert than me, but I'm not sure that it can. I think the MRI'd Rockley horses have all had active lesions in the ddft or collateral ligaments. Adhesions have to be broken (if they can be) and movement does that, but whether it does it better in shoes or out of them I'm not sure we have any evidence at all - which may be why no-one can answer you.

Have you tried MSM with him? I have a friend whose horse has adhesions in a tendon injury higher in the leg and he is sound on MSM and unsound without it.

Following on from your original post, if your vet is certain that it is the adhesions causing the pain and no other injury, then that is probably one case where I would not gasp in horror at the idea of a neurectomy. If you go down that route do make sure you know the management implications of keeping a horse with numb feet though.

I hope you get him right.


ps please can you let us know if there has been any more deterioration? I am very interested in barefoot horses with anything in the navicular spectrum. Can you also tell us if his frog touches the floor when he is standing on a hard flat surface? The reason for that is that I know of only one other horse lame with back-half hoof pain and barefoot, and that came sound when it had the conditions to make it modify its foot so that its frog was brought into contact with the ground.
 
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this might be a really stupid question but how can u tell if his frog is touching the ground???

My inital reaction to the neurectomy was one of horror as well but after a lot of research and talking to as many people as i can the only way i would consider it is if like you say it is ONLY the adhesions causing the pain i cant get my head round it if he has something else going on like naviuclar. I know he cant feel it but it wouldnt sit well with me knowing that it was getting worse and i wouldnt know cos he couldnt tell me. If i do go down that route will prob take him barefoot again as feel i can protect his foot better that way as can boot him over stony ground etc.

Thanks for the tip about MSM will try that

Thanks for everyones help will let you know how i get on on wednesday.
 
Stand him on flat concrete and get a piece of something thin and stiff, like a steel ruler, or your credit card and try and slide it under his frog. The guy whose research that I trust most, Bob Bowker, says that you should not be able to do it. The one horse I know who was lame with major collateral ligament damage in spite of being barefoot came sound when his frog was making contact with the floor. His owner posts on UKNHCP.myfastforum.com if you want to "talk" to her.

You can get MSM cheap off eBay and it is the right stuff, I have tasted it!

Good luck Wednesday.
 
It should look like this from above

DSCF0573.jpg


Hope the pic works
 
cptrayes said:
But there is not one horse so far that they have not sent home much sounder than it arrived after around 12- 16 weeks
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That is simply not true. I know of a few who did not improve as you said they would.

This does not mean that I do not think Rockley is great FOR HORSES WHO ARE SUITABLE CANDIDATES TO START WITH.

Nic herself says that not every horse would benefit from the rehab.

And you simply can't make judgments on what would suit someone else's horse who you've never met, whose scans you've never seen and whose circumstances you have no idea of.
 
ae76williams said:
That is simply not true. I know of a few who did not improve as you said they would.

This does not mean that I do not think Rockley is great FOR HORSES WHO ARE SUITABLE CANDIDATES TO START WITH.

Nic herself says that not every horse would benefit from the rehab.

And you simply can't make judgments on what would suit someone else's horse who you've never met, whose scans you've never seen and whose circumstances you have no idea of.
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I'm sorry, I've just re-read your message and realised that I misunderstood what you said. I thought you said that all horses who go down the Rockley route come back to full athletic function or better, when you actually said all come home more sound than before.

I want to start by saying that what Rockley do is absolutely amazing and they have had truly remarkable results; however, I think it's misleading to say that it would be suitable for every single horse and that the outcome is stellar for everyone.

The cases I know of did come home better than when they went away, granted, but not miraculously so; furthermore they have by no means regained full athletic function many months on, despite following recommendations once returned home. Maybe this is down to facilities, I don't know, but it is still a factor to consider. Again, they are better than before but only really sound in walk on a straight line, which is no better than Izzwizz's situation and vastly different from '3-6 months ago my horse couldn't walk now look at him competing BE novice every weekend', which is often given as the TYPICAL rehab outcome by barefoot evangelists (not, I hasten to add, by Rockley themselves).

I just don't think it's fair to give people this sort of false hope. Say it might, or even will, help, yes, but don't let people think they'll be e.g. jumping in 12 weeks. I also think it's unfair to berate people for their decisions and views because they don't tally with yours, especially when you have no idea about their circumstances, have never seen the horse and have no idea about their injuries. And I think it's absolutely preposterous to say that there are horses who went to Rockley in a far worse state than said person's horse - however could you know?

I do think that Rockley do wonderful work and there are, undoubtedly, many real success stories. It is still very early days and the sample size is small so the Dexter project is a fantastic thing too. A large-scale clinical study on this would be invaluable, but seeing as this is unlikely to happen for a number of reasons, results of this and other methods really need to be rigorously documented (hard, scientific evidence as well as anecdotal evidence, and inclusion of good AND bad results) in peer-reviewed journals.

I think it's a crying shame that there are many, many vets who would refuse to contemplate such methods 'just because', but increasing documented evidence would surely serve to change their way of thinking.

I must add that there are also vets who wholeheartedly approve of this form of rehab but wouldn't recommend this route for every horse because for one reason or another it just wouldn't be suitable. And to be honest, I would trust their judgment over a barefoot evangelist who'd never met me or my horse any day.

Horses for courses, as they say.
 
Nothing to add other than good luck with horse and sorting its issues. And the BF folk on here talk major sense and have been really helpful with me and mine and hes just old not injured :)
 
An update from me too, my mare is doing well, has been back in regular work since last posting and has had no further problems since. She is now living out which is so much better for her and for Winter she has her shoes off as is not going to be ridden until next Spring. Its a bit difficult trying to ride 3, work, run a home etc, need I say more!
 
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