Coffin joint and sacriallic lameness

[Whiz36]

Has anyone else had any experiance with both of these (sacriallic and coffin joint lameness) at the same time? My 13year old tb went lame over a year ago with a spur on the coffin joint. We had him xrayed and injected and then raised shoes put on went sound for 3 mths then badly lame again. turned away over the winter (had 6mths off roughly) seemed sound in front lunged a couple of times to discover he was now wrong behind. Lameness work up and diagnoses sacriallic Issues (only marginally showed up lame in front aswell) COVID then put a stop to anything further happening now not only is he wrong behind his now obviously lame in front at a trot presumably the hard ground has had an effect. Would love to hear positive out comes. I’m going to be starting the process of having him injected soon in both areas and hopefully get him sound enough to do some schooling? Not even sure if this will solve his problems fully? If anyone’s had anything similar would love to hear your story Thankyou.

 

[LiquidMetal]

So unfortunately I don’t have a positive outcome.

I had a 17.3 ISH who was diagnosed with bilateral coffin joint arthritis when he was 11. SI issues were never actually diagnosed but I strongly suspect that was his initial issue. He was always tender to have his SI palpated and had a hunters bump. My guess is that he had a fall in field as a younger horse, never was diagnosed or rehabbed and he changed his posture to compensate. He had a massively over developed chest, neck and shoulders with a poor top line over spine and a undersized hind end. I think posture change and probably less than fantastic foot care before I got him at 9 contributed to arthritis

Farrier rockered toes which helped a lot initially. However, we are in Canada and had to use snow pads in winter which limited ability to rocker toes. He didn’t want to use wedges as heels were already prone to getting under run and didn’t want to risk crushing them more. Wasn’t possible to keep him comfortable without the rocker and barefoot wasn’t really an option. Tried injecting but it didn’t help as much as we hoped.

I chose not to spend money on trying to diagnose and chase down his other issues because I knew looking at his feet, we were living on borrowed time. Even if I had spent a year getting his SI and back rehabbed properly, I knew that in another year or 2 due to his size, his feet would have limited him (or spur could’ve broken off). I ended up putting him to sleep last May.

I would probably inject both in your situation and try rehabbing SI as your focus. Really important to keep toes from getting long also!

 

[Whiz36]

Thanks for your reply, an outcome that has crossed my mind unfortunately. But thought I’d give it one last shot. Did yours have any behavioural issues when ridden? Mine is very nappy. He’s Got very good feet Currently barefoot farrier agreed with this for time being.

 

[LiquidMetal]

He wasn’t too bad under saddle (most of his behavioral issues were on ground). I would say general loss of performance. He’d start off good at beginning of ride but about 15/20 mins in, things would go downhill. He would absolutely tank on my hands and refuse to engage behind. He started to buck on landing after jumps which was one first signs something was up. Mine was just generally overall very neurotic and anxious. I think because he was always living with pain, any additional stress was just too much.