Bone Spavin v. PSD - what are the symptoms?

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tasel

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As you can see from my post below, my horse has been diagnosed with BS earlier this year (early stage).

However, I have seen posts on here saying that PSD can often be misdiagnosed as BS. What are the difference in symptoms?

The thing is, my horse seems to still be in the early stage of BS, however, is visibly lame on at least one hind leg. From what I gather, horses with BS normally only go lame at the later stage.

What I have noticed though is that often vets will only look until they find something that could be the cause of the lameness, but might also not be the cause of it at all. And since BS is easier to diagnose than PSD, they seem to stop at that. To be honest, I don't have a very great opinion of vets these days as too many of them have botched up - from the 5* vetting that was just done in a rush, it seems, to a misdiagnosis last year, etc.

So, yes... please could you let me know what the difference in symptoms are - or are there none at all???
 

Was your horse diagnosed with spavin using a nerve block test? (ie they blocked out the hock & found that was causing the pain).

Also was she scanned/x rayed?
 
nerve blocks can be confusing when it comes to differentiating BS and PSD as the anaesthetic can diffuse. does your horse have bony changes on xray indicating BS or changes on ultrasound indicating PSD? they're pretty easy to distinguish with a thorough investigation.
 
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Was your horse diagnosed with spavin using a nerve block test? (ie they blocked out the hock & found that was causing the pain).

Also was she scanned/x rayed?

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My horse was only x-rayed. They only did a nerve block the first time round when they didn't even say it was bone spavin. Apparently, the lameness was just "in her head" (!!!). Earlier this year, they said it was bone spavin. They x-rayed her extensively, but I doubt they did nerve blocks this time round...
 
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nerve blocks can be confusing when it comes to differentiating BS and PSD as the anaesthetic can diffuse. does your horse have bony changes on xray indicating BS or changes on ultrasound indicating PSD? they're pretty easy to distinguish with a thorough investigation.

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There were bony changes on the x-rays. However, she doesn't seem to react to the Cortison injection at all...

What's the chances a horse can have both???
 

That's where I was heading
smile.gif

Scanning would tell the difference.

The symptoms can be similar tbh, (poor performance, evasion, lame on a tight circle) so I think there is no way of telling without the scanning/x rays.

For what it is worth I would sooner deal with a Bone Spavin than a PSD.

My vets have been doing some new treatment with ethyl alcohol injections which fuse the bone spavin very quickly. They have seen some very good success in their trials (one of which was my mare) - PM me if you want more info on this.
 
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nerve blocks can be confusing when it comes to differentiating BS and PSD as the anaesthetic can diffuse. does your horse have bony changes on xray indicating BS or changes on ultrasound indicating PSD? they're pretty easy to distinguish with a thorough investigation.

[/ QUOTE ]

There were bony changes on the x-rays. However, she doesn't seem to react to the Cortison injection at all...

What's the chances a horse can have both???

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If there were bony changes then she does have spavin. Doesn't mean she doesn't have PSD though but that would be pretty unlucky.

Not ALL horses respond to the cortisone. My mare didn't.
 
I would say that they present the same, the ony way to tell the difference is via nerve blocks, scans and x-rays.
 
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