BBP mark 2 - more weird horses

SEL said:
Different feed suppliers too?
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Apologies, I thought I had replied to this. Yes different hay, feed, all sorts.

Vet is back in a week and will blood test the whole herd for liver, plus she has agreed to test for Lyme. It’s one of those things where it probably isn’t that, but I know what a savage insidious disease Lyme is, and my vet told me that Rossdales have just had a spate of horses tested for it lately. So not an off the wall idea.

I’m trying to take the extreme level of sensitivity as an opportunity to work on my training skills. So things like today I tacked him up with a proper saddle for the first time (he has had a bareback pad and that sort of thing on), but I worked on it at liberty, so that it’s really difficult to work too fast or ignore the little tells of him being uncomfortable. (I’m fibbing slightly, I realised afterwards that I was so focussed on the saddling part that I ignored the little head raise when I put the breastplate on over his head, so I’ll go back to that bit). So hopefully that sort of thing will pay off in the longer term once (if!) he is ever sorted enough to be ready to back.
 
Just by way of an update, and potentially raiding the HHO hive mind.

Lyme disease was negative.
PSSM 1 negative.
Liver results were horrendous in August, GGT 1000. But by mid Sept down to 250. Retested yesterday so waiting of those.

I’ve started trying to pick him I and do little bits with him (just asking him to lift through thoracic sling and relax his neck out and down) and we are straight back to hiccuping, wanting to lie down and getting very stressed.
But moves incredibly well when it’s his own idea. Very sound. I thought of lobbing him out in massive field with a herd for the winter.

But…my brain started ticking. Which is rarely good as between him, the arab and the Shetland I’m becoming a wreck about their health. Instructor viewed him at his stressed worst as did physio, and they both think before chucking away for the winter, I get a better idea of what is going on, as they think possible nerve impingement. So i dug out his neck x-rays from 2024 and sent them to 2 different vets to review. Vets who took them in 2024 said no anomalies detected on X-ray but queried enlarged facet joints particularly c4/5 on ultrasound. The vets who reviewed them this week both think there is something at C2/C3 in the X-rays, possibly a malformation of the caudal articular process joint, and some stenosis of the transverse process joints. This is news to me!

So recommended referral to RVC for a full neuro workup and possibly a CT myelogram. Which feels a fairly risky procedure but might give some answers. He isn’t an overt wobbler, so it would be more likely to be compression of the nerve roots as they exit the spinal cord, rather than compression of the spinal cord itself. He’s far too overweight right now to have any kind of steroid if a problem was found.

I’d be really interested to know what others would do with a horse that presents so strangely. Weighing the risk vs benefit of a general anaesthetic and a myelogram. I’m so bloody lost on what to do. He could be the most stunning horse, but all his potential is stuck. He’s ‘okay’ out doing nothing, but I think if he has nerve pain and I could relieve it, he could be amazing.
 
Will the findings be treatable with a reasonable chance of a long term fix? For me it would hinge on that. The problem with things like stenosis and nerve pain is they quite often arent fixable. Being super fit and strong can help though, but how do you get them there if moving hurts? And you wont know if being fit and strong helps until they are fit and strong. So its a difficult one.

In your shoes I would do the basics and see if that gave me answers then lob him out for a year and see what I had at the end. But its easy when its not your horse to say things like that!
 
I'm Dun said:
Will the findings be treatable with a reasonable chance of a long term fix? For me it would hinge on that. The problem with things like stenosis and nerve pain is they quite often arent fixable. Being super fit and strong can help though, but how do you get them there if moving hurts? And you wont know if being fit and strong helps until they are fit and strong. So its a difficult one.

In your shoes I would do the basics and see if that gave me answers then lob him out for a year and see what I had at the end. But its easy when its not your horse to say things like that!
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That’s the great unknown part at the moment. At the moment the X-rays are a question mark and not a certainty, so more clarity would help me understand better what is happening, if anything at all. But am I prepared to risk things to get that clarity, I don’t know. I could re-X-ray and get the vets opinion on fresh X-rays and ultrasounds (his neck is a much better shape now than it was). I would happily pay for the standing CT at RVC, but he’s a big fella for a Connemara and I’m not sure it would even get to C3.
 
As you’re wanting the top of the neck not the base I think it would be worth discussing whether CT can be done standing (maybe not if they need the neck in a certain position but Liverpool , Rainbow & RVC websites all seem to suggest that the part of the neck you want might be possible standing….

Depending on how powerful the X-ray machine is that took the original images a repeat at a referral centre with something more powerful may be worth doing if CT not an option as you do get better image quality if you’re not at the limit of what your machine can do (image clarity on what Rainbow did at base of Highlands neck vs my own vets and their portable is like night & day)

In your position if standing CT was an option (& affordable) then I’d probably go for that but I’d be cautious of a GA just to chase answers if I don’t think I’m going to be able to do much with them. If CT would need GA I probably still would have the neuro exam & maybe a repeat of X-rays & scans of facet joints to look for signs of progression of any abnormalities on 1st set of X-rays (as knowing if whatever is going through n appears to be changing over time could be useful in future decision making). I am a self admitted chaser of answers though as I like to know if I’m basically banging my head against a brick wall / stuck in an unfixable doom loop.
 
Just had a look and Leahurst did up to C3 on my Welsh D in 2019 standing. (& he wasn’t massively co operative)

I think the RVCs scanner is a newer model so may have even better abilities? (Although if you want the whole neck up to base then yeah think you’d still need to GA)
 
Thanks Boulty. I spoke to RVC and they said it could go to C3 depending on the depth of neck of the horse. I think I’m leaning towards what you said. New X-rays on a more powerful machine (although all vets said how good the ones I had done were, given they were done on a portable machine), ultrasound, and IF I can get a standing CT of the upper neck and the X-rays of that indicate that more detail is needed, go for that. That way I get an up to date picture of any changes as you say, without the risk of a GA.
 
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