Barefoot back to shoes?

[serenityjane]

He is due to be tested next week he is on 2mg per day, his levels 12 weeks ago were 69 we gave one mg per day and his levels went up to 78! I am going to shoe at the moment he is not coping without and there is another horse on the yard with cushings and she has had to keep shoes on her as she does not cope without. Also can anyone confirm if the Prascend has a negative effect on the hoof quality?

It does take quite a while to get the dose right, and yes the feet are probably telling you that you are not quite there yet! Prascend had no negative effect on the hoof quality of my mare, but the cushings did, so hopefully you will know more next week. Probably a good idea to discuss your concerns with the vet too, as he will be able to recommend your next step as regards exercise/riding etc.
Personally I think that I would shoe too in your position and start slow and steady riding- see what happens from there.

 

[Gloi]

My 25yo gelding is on Prascend and he is going from strength to strength at the moment. He wasn't bad but he had been acting like an older pony last summer and I was a bit worried he might have been getting ready to retire. He's been being treated for 8 months and is really fit as anything now. He is barefoot but wears boots for most hacking and that suits him, the Prascend hasn't harmed his feet. He's doing 2-3 hour hacks a few times a week and feels like he's 10 again.

 

[Wagtail]

My cushings mare was only on one prascend a day and that kept her well within the accepted blood count limits. I had her tested regularly and the cushings was always under control according to the blood test. She also improved in body shape and coat, but no matter how thin she got, we could not shake off the low grade laminitis. Cushings itself will thin the soles of the hoof. My girl was only 475 kg by the end which as a 15.3hh WB was a condition score of around 2.5 (out of 5). But she still got laminitis. I did not shoe her because I did not want to mask the signs. I used hoof boots whih worked until the end when nothing would work. I finally relented and put heart bars on her. I knew her time was limited and so I was not looking at a long term fix. The heart bars made her comfortable enough to enjoy proper turnout with the others (muzzled sadly). Unfortunately she ended up redoing an old tendon injury in the field and I had her PTS rather than keep her on box rest on such meagre rations. Just heartbreaking.

Anyway, what I am saying is with a Cushings/laminitic horse it can be practically impossible to keep the laminitis at bay. They have to be kept thinner and thinner to keep them sound, and when you reach that limit where to take them thinner would be cruel, then you have a hard decision to make. The tendon injury was a blessing in a way as it forced my hand. OP my advice would be to avoid shoes for as long as you can, because they do mask early signs of laminitis. Most Cushings horses I have known that have been shod, ultimately ended up suffering a terminal bout of laminitis because it is not picked up early enough. Some Cushings horses are not as bad as my mare and they can be managed. But as others have said, treat you horse like a laminitic. I would not shoe whilst there is any possibility of inflammation.

 

[tallyho!]

There is obviously an underlying problem that means she can't graze like others.

I would give Trinity Consultants a call. Have suggested them to so many people now and they have been marvellous! I feel like I should ask for salary!! Lol!!

You may want to give her system a detox if just small amounts of sugar are sending her system into an inflammatory response. It does mean keeping her off grass completely and soaked hay. No hard feed except unmollassed chaff or beet to soak up the solution. Probably 10 days. It helped my boy. It's expensive though so be warned!

 

[cptrayes]

Grass is not poison for any horse, barefoot or shod, lush grass has it's dangers obviously

Actually, plenty of horses, not necessarily overweight ones either, have very severe problems with grass, and close cropped grass is very high in sugar and can be more dangerous than grass that looks more lush.

 

[cptrayes]

I can't get my head round how he can be sound but also footsore?

It's a question of point loading. The horse is footie when it takes too much weight on too small an area, Spread the weight out more over a flat or giving surface, and it's ok.

I'm not necessarily talking about the OP' s horse as I have not seen it.

 

[cptrayes]

1. Is this always so?

Is the laminar bonding principle unique to the wall only?

Surely the sole corium is a growth corium and does not feature that primary and secondary interlocking mechanism that can subsequently break down.

I don't think there has to be any breakdown of locking for the solar corium to be inflamed and to hurt when the horse treads on a stone. It's the point loading which gives the game away that the horse is moving into a dangerous state, and many barefooters will tell you that this warning arrives quite a while before any hoof wall attachment issues make the horse lame except when on an uneven surface. My own experience is that obvious pulses follow the initial sole sensitivity, the unexpected 'ouch' when treading on a stone being the very first sign that you need to get the horse off the grass.

 

[paddy555]

She showed me the latest test result sheet from a Cob that had established Cushings over a number of years, it read "Normal ACTH concentration, no evidence of PPID" (Cushings)!

I had 2 similar test results. Perfectly normal horse, no PPID. Well actually he was VERY seriously ill with PPID. I learnt that the test results need to be considered along with everything else. All the physical signs of PPID>

OP,
I have a horse like yours. PPID and nothing has ever made any sense about barefoot with him. He too would charge around on grass yet as a barefoot horse he simply couldn't manage. I spent many years trying to work it out before I gave up even trying to find explanations.
My other barefoot horses all worked by the rule book. It needed to be rewritten for him. BF PPID horses seem to have a fair number of problems but we seem to be a long way of understanding exactly why. It just seems to be a case of finding the best way to deal with them.

I had to accept he was never going to make it barefoot ridden. The choice was boots or shoes. I tried shoes but things got even worse so I went back to boots. He is now booted on 4 feet for all riding. At the time I hadn't realised how intolerant to grass he was and the shoes masked his real position. Shoes may make the horse comfortable but you can see much more quickly barefoot if there is a problem and get in there quickly to try and do something.

I found out he could not tolerate grass at all. He is yarded and muzzled to go out to move around on the track.
He has not been blood tested again. I have no great confidence in a test that couldn't diagnose him in the first place. His physical symptoms (muscle loss, pot belly, hives etc) have all improved back to normal on prascend so I am confident he is on the correct dose. He needs a supplement to keep his feet growing as he has poor growth rates without. The prascend however has made no difference to his inability to cope barefoot. I don't think that even if the dose is perfect it is any guarentee that you will have a horse that can go over anything BF.

 

[NooNoo59]

We went to the vets about four weeks ago had xrays done to check the pedal bone and associated structures, vet please with xrays. He could no signs of laminitus and his opinion is that we need to make him more comfortable and he is not coping without shoes, this could change when we have to correct dosage of prascend confirmed. So I am going to shoe, I can always take them off again if I think its not helping and buy a set of boots for the hinds.

 

[Wagtail]

We went to the vets about four weeks ago had xrays done to check the pedal bone and associated structures, vet please with xrays. He could no signs of laminitus and his opinion is that we need to make him more comfortable and he is not coping without shoes, this could change when we have to correct dosage of prascend confirmed. So I am going to shoe, I can always take them off again if I think its not helping and buy a set of boots for the hinds.

My mare had 4 sets of xrays done over the 2 years she suffered almost continuously from low grade laminitis. They were always perfect. Nothing at all wrong with them. Xrays can only tell you if the pedal bone has dropped or rotated. They may also help identify if there is an abscess or any bone remodelling, but they do not tell you whether or not the horse has laminitis. Good news though that there is no bony change.

 

[charliejet]

Prascend has helped improve the quality of my mares feet but it takes time. Her soles are thicker and because the episodes of lgl are far fewer there is less chronic damage. I still have to treat her as a lami horse on restricted grazing, the Prascend doesnt mean she can live a normal life unfortunately but I have no doubt that it helps improve her quality of life.
My pony was having recurrent skin and hoof infections and was run down, struggled to hold weight she seemed like she was 26 not 16, she has only been on it a couple of months and it has taken much longer to get her dose correct but she now seems like a pony in her later teens. Her feet are also improving as a result.

Absolutely agree that x-rays dont prove there is no lami, at one point my mare had stretched, bruised white line, seperation, horrendous lami hoof rings and a perfect pedal bone shaped bruise on her sole, she was sore, short strided and pottery on her feet yet on x-ray you would never have known she had lami.

Like I said previously I shoe my mare when she needs it but there is no doubt that I can monitor and caught any lami so much faster and safer without. There has to be compromise with these horses for their comfort for sure.