Bone spavins - treatment Old vs New

A

Allover

Well-Known Member
Joined
20 July 2010
Messages
2,155
Visit site
I have been noticing a lot of threads recently regarding horses being diagnosed and treated for Bone spavins.

Years ago when a horse was diagnosed with bone spavin the treatment was to keep the horse in walk work on the roads to help it fuse, turn it out, wait for it to come sound (3-6 months) and then carry on as before. All the horses i knew who had it (hunters and eventers mostly) came sound after a period of time and carried on with ridden\competition life for many years.

I wonder sometimes whether we now do too much in the way of "treatment", for example, steroids, joint injections etc and actually compromise the healing process in doing so and whether letting nature take its course would be a better course of action?

Would be interesting to hear your thoughts :)

And to all of you who are currently going through this with your horses i hope you all have happy endings. :)
 
Tried both approaches. We went for cartrophen first time, then steroids and joint injections. Then tildren all these worked for short periods of time. So decided to turn away, shoes off for winter at the end of last summer. Didnt make much of a difference so spoke to different vet and he re-did x-rays and has tried a different type of steroid based hock injection that has help improve her more than rest of the treatment she has had and have not put her shoes back.
 
I'm also trying both approaches.

I'm a great believer in time being the best healer with most problems, but keen to benefit from advances in medicine hence my trying Tildren.

My horse is also recovering from suspensory ligament damage for which she is turned away; however with something like spavins, I can't help but think that time alone will not be sufficient.
 
Yep its not easy to know whats best, i suppose you just have to trust your vet and your instincts.

Good luck with your guys :)
 
Allover said:
I have been noticing a lot of threads recently regarding horses being diagnosed and treated for Bone spavins.

Years ago when a horse was diagnosed with bone spavin the treatment was to keep the horse in walk work on the roads to help it fuse, turn it out, wait for it to come sound (3-6 months) and then carry on as before. All the horses i knew who had it (hunters and eventers mostly) came sound after a period of time and carried on with ridden\competition life for many years.

I wonder sometimes whether we now do too much in the way of "treatment", for example, steroids, joint injections etc and actually compromise the healing process in doing so and whether letting nature take its course would be a better course of action?

Would be interesting to hear your thoughts :)

And to all of you who are currently going through this with your horses i hope you all have happy endings. :)
Click to expand...


It is my belief (from what I have read) that not all bone spavins are helped by waiting for fusion to take place. Sometimes it is better to intervene and treat with fusion inhibitors like Tildren and injections of steroids into the joint itself. I know what you mean about the way we treat animals these days and chuck all these drugs and treatments at them (especially when they are insured) but we only do this because we are more aware of how these new drugs help where in the 'olden days' we were rather ignorant of such things. And remedies like cold hosing and enforced walking for laminitis, blistering for tendon injuries, preventing a horse from rolling because we believed it caused a twisted gut, preventing a horse from drinking during exercise, etc, etc are all old wives tales although I do think that blistering was successful a lot of the time (although not ethical and definetely not pain free).

As a modern society we owe it to our animals to do the best for them, increase the likelihood of a successful outcome by treating them with modern medicine and techniques and learning and widening our knowledge base in general through learning from such things as equine magazines, programmes on tv and helpful forums such as this. But I often admit that horses seemed to be tougher than they are now, or maybe it was just that we let things slip by either through our ignorance or because we were not so sentimental in 'days gone by'. Interesting topic.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Years ago when a horse was diagnosed with bone spavin the treatment was to keep the horse in walk work on the roads to help it fuse, turn it out, wait for it to come sound (3-6 months) and then carry on as before. All the horses i knew who had it (hunters and eventers mostly) came sound after a period of time and carried on with ridden\competition life for many years.

I wonder sometimes whether we now do too much in the way of "treatment", for example, steroids, joint injections etc and actually compromise the healing process in doing so and whether letting nature take its course would be a better course of action?
Click to expand...

Call me a bitter old Scottish cynic :eek:- but thinking of these as choices A and B - A isn't covered by insurance and costs nothing, no one screws any cash out of you for it...and B - well ho hum....

We used Approach A, but with shoes off too, and got an excellent result.

We also gave up on the white powders and brown liquids that we persisted with for 18 months - and started on linseed meal for the Omega 3/6 anti inflams - that really helped. It helped my wallet as well as my horse ;)
 
I do also wonder whether we want things to come right quickly to get back out competing or hunting etc when if we gave the animals more time they would come back into a more lasting career. I am not a bit fan of joint injections and steroid injections make me shiver.

I am a firm believer that (good) mares should have a first foal between the ages of 4-6, i feel it sorts out lots of "issues" that may be hiding and that a good old dose of Dr Green benefits all younger horses immeasurably.

Brucea - you are a bitter old cynic and scottish to boot!!! :D
 
Allover said:
I am a firm believer that (good) mares should have a first foal between the ages of 4-6, i feel it sorts out lots of "issues" that may be hiding and that a good old dose of Dr Green benefits all younger horses immeasurably.
Click to expand...

A foal was exactly what the vet recommended for my mare (recovering spavins and suspensory ligaments). Unfortunately I can't afford to keep two, so settled for Dr Green.
 
My cob mare was diagnosed with bone spavin this time last year and I refused to go with injections into the joint or tildren. I went for the good old fashioned walking exercise on the roads until the joints fused, with help from a short course of Danilon. Working closely with my farrier (who has now shod her with shoe extensions), she has remained completely sound and in hard work since last March.
 
Good thread & interesting replies. Having already paid what seems to me quite a lot in vets fees before even starting treatments, I have arrived at similar sentiments as expressed by Brucea re. approach A/B & have decided to go the natural route with my mare, but still early days & still trying the herbals.
 
Really interesting thread this, thanks to all for their observations.

It's doubly interesting for me as I am just weighing up whether to do down the Tildren route. However, it's not for spavin, it's for sesamoiditis. In my mare's case we are not wanting bone to fuse, we are waiting for bone to regenerate and strengthen. Under vets orders I have done the walking exercise for 3 months but she has got significantly worse so she is now on field rest and she will be put in foal this year. Once she has (hopefully) had the foal it will be something like two years off so I am undecided about whether to go for Tildren now or just rely on the long period of field rest.

Normally I am pro using technology/medical advances where it is available but my usually happy and cheery mare is now totally fed up with needles, flexions, scanning, xrays, special shoeing etc and I am left wondering whether I should just leave her alone.

I guess the big question is will Tildren make enough of a difference?
 
Unfortunately, our ending with modern treatments was certainly not happy. :( If the right horse comes my way again some day and it does suffer with similar problems then I would be very very wary of modern methods and probably not use certain treatments - all I can do is beg you to research these properly before using them, although in our case research could not have helped but please be careful -contact the drug company before use etc. Some of these are in fairly early stages of research etc in the scheme of things so not everything is known about them.
 
I think the best thing is to stop everything except pain relief if it is required - just take the shoes off and let a good trimmer manage the feet. Removing the shoes removes the concussive forces. The feet will grow to support what's above - there is only so much a farrier can do - and the horse will grow a foot that hopefully gives it some relief. It may be a very subtle balance thing where only a few mm makes all the difference.

I've trimmed a spavined horse now for 4 years. If I take away the flare on the medial aspect of the hoof and level the hoof he is uncomfortable - if I leave it well alone he is sound. The diference is really only about 4mm, but that is an important 4mm to him. He's self trimming now - he wears what he grows, and grows what he wears, so I don't actually have to do much nowadays. This is a horse that does 4-6 hour hacks twice a week over rough ground.

Seems that whenever you try to hurry nature along there are always consequences. All you can do is create the best chance for it to heal itself.
 
brucea said:
Seems that whenever you try to hurry nature along there are always consequences. All you can do is create the best chance for it to heal itself.
Click to expand...

Yes, I think I agree with you here. I guess many of us have a tendency to try and control medical situations too much and we are often impatient.

Thanks very much for the replies, much appreciated.
 
my horse was kicked over a year and a half ago and then developed arthritis but only inone hind
i didn't want the tildren (not happy with this) and also did not want any i/a injections in case of complications plus it was making her very cagey re leg after the nerve blocks
as a consequence she is a field ornament
have had lots of homeo from chris day and laser but in oct after x-rays the hock was very active
at the moment am waiting and hoping that will settle with a hope that we can both ride together again
personally i don't like the data on tiludronic acid and i don't think i/a steroids or adequan are a long term viable solution
 
I do think the outcome with spavins is very much dependant (as has already been mentioned) on where in the hock the changes are. I can't for the life of me remember which part, but I know it is basd upon how much movement there is in the damaged part of the hock.

Obviously if it is the part that moves a lot - then the prognosis is not so good!

Being a bit of a fossil - most of my experience is either turn away or carry on with bute or such. The majority of which returned to work within a year sound - the odd one remained on bute for a longer period but most did come right long term.

The use of steroids injected into the hock does now appear to be common place, and I have heard of countless accounts of success, but also some cautionary tales where the horse has had several jabs and has seen no improvement.

I also wonder whether in general we do too much schooling, rather than getting the horses out and about working them over different terrains.

The hunters/hackers seem to cope better after spavins - presumably as the stress is shared equally over the joint plane, rather than working one side of the joint and then the other?

Back to the debate over what the horse is designed to do and what we expect of it nowadays!
 
Brucea once again I like your ideas! I keep being told corrective shoeing for spavin but my mare has been barefoot for some time; she is very neat with her feet & she doesn't drag the injured leg. I believe any shoeing must be heavier on the injured leg than barefoot. She lives out; I walk her out & ride & lead behind another, if she is in pain she lets me know. I have realised that much of her grumpy behaviour is pain related. The other day she wouldn't let me near her, she didn't want to go out; yesterday she came to be haltered with the other horse & we had a lovely hack (ride & lead). If she needs a rest she stops & lets me know. I think it is important to keep the muscles going. I am learning better how to treat her from observation than any text book stuff (or what the vets can sell me). I hope people will continue to report their progress; although every horse/case is different, it's very encouraging, & right now I need to remain optimistic & I know going the natural route is going to take time.
 
LWH - the other things I found helped were Linseed meal (brilliant stuff) and keeping him warm but not too hot - basically not letting him get chilled. If you look closely at the feet you may see some assymetry - that will be interesting to watch.

Shoes just add concussion - that's the last thing they need really.

It does take time, but patience is the best tool in your box.

They'll have up and down days, and often they will have secondary back pain.

Best way is not to get all twisted up over each day, but look at it a month at a time and see improvement over the month.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top