Barefoot for bursa/navicular changes

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sidsmum

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It's been a very long time since I have posted here but I am after a bit of advice.

I have a cob who has had a reoccurring lameness in her left fore. She has undergone, nerve blocks, X rays, two MRI's etc and today is going to have a steroid injection into her coffin joint.

The MRI showed inflammation in the navicular bone and damage to the collateral ligaments of the navicular bone and coffin joint, plus injury to the ddft. I was advised to put her in heart bar shoes (which she has been in for about a year now).

I have been bringing her back into work and it had seemingly been going quite well but then she randomly went lame after a week of doing nothing - just mooching about on the track. This has happened a couple of times.

The vet wants to try steroid injections into the coffin joint, which we are going to do, but I have to admit I feel a little pessimistic about the injections- my experience is that they don't last very long and it feels a bit like a sticking plaster if you see what I mean.

I know a lot of people advise taking the shoes off, but my farrier is adamant that that would be a bad idea. He says she has low slung heels and the weight bearing without shoes wouldn't be good for her. He does want to change to egg bar rather than heart bar however. I am going to speak to my vet this morning but I am just looking for advice and anecdotal stories from what people have experienced with this sort of thing.

Thank you, and apologies for the waffle!
 
Thoroughly recommend Arthrimed (gel) injections instead of steroids into coffins. Better results and much longer lasting.

My mare had them, very effective. i have taken her barefoot too. We didn't get her MRI'd but the vet was pretty sure there was soft tissue damage in the front feet as well as the slight changes to the coffin joint which showed up on x ray.

She had had a history of poor foot balance - excessively long toe.

As she wasn't insured, vet suggested going straight to medicating the coffins with gel, which worked well.

Good luck with yours.
 
I had the same issue and went to barefoot and my horse came sound and stayed sound since. My lad had had wedge shoes, but they just keep making the heel lower and lower. when shoes came off I booted up when needed, but with good farrier care the heels raised up fairly quickly, and hoof got a good shape. it would be good to have a farrier that is onside about it tho. I had the opposite situation where my vet said horse wouldn't cope (low heels, thin soles) but my farrier was the one to say give it a go (and she is old school pro-shoes). And it tooks a few months for him to transition, but she was the one supporting me when I thought he was too footy to cope at the start. he is now fine and touch wood hasn't been lame since.
 
I could honestly scream after all these years at the number of farriers who STILL don't know that the best way to build up "low slung heels" is to take off the shoes and put them to work.

I did this horse seventeen years ago when barefoot was first being widely talked about as the best remedy for navicular syndrome. This change in the right fore took 12 weeks.

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Thank you everyone.
The vet was reluctant to go the way of taking her shoes off, but I think more due to trying the steroid injection first, ie, change one thing at a time. It's hard to know what to do for the best. I suppose if the steroids don't work then barefoot is all that is left really. @Tiddlypom thank you, I will look into the gel as I haven't heard of that before.

I am about to have a look around a barefoot track livery which is local to me so I will also quiz them and ask them who they use to trim etc.
 
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