Collapsed heels - what is there to know?

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Christmas Crumpet

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Horse has just been diagnosed with collapsed heels after a lameness work up and x rays.

Vet says...

Her x-ray results were very good for a horse her age and merely confirmed what we had surmised - her heels - the area where we have proven the seat of pain to be - are collapsed and are therefore placing undue strain on the quarters of the hoof and soft-tissue structures. Therefore, I have recommended that she be placed on elevated frog support shoes, not only to displace the weight off of the weak wall and through the centre of the foot, but to correct the alignment of the pedal bone as well. Once this has been done, I would like to assess her movement to see how this has improved. If it has - and I am rather hopeful that it will -with a tweak here and there I shall ask you to kick on. If not, then I will inject her coffin joints, etc.

I'd like to know good and bad stories about them. It seems to me that no matter how good your farrier, this can still happen.

Any info would be v.gratefully received.
 
The main cause of collapsed heels is shoeing. Barefoot horses do not get collapsed heels as far as I am aware. Therefore, if she were mine, I would remove her shoes and buy her some hoof boots with pads. There are some barefoot experts on here who I am sure will give you more help.
 
The main thing to know is that putting those flipping wedges on does not help! I would try to give your horse a break from shoes.
 
One of my liveries is currently undergoing treatment for similar, his x rays showed some counter rotation although he was not lame it explained why the farrier was having problems keeping the toes back and despite every effort his heels were getting worse.
He is in bar shoes, the vet wanted to use wedges but the farrier and I were not happy with doing this, worried a sound horse would go lame, he has had 2 sets, the 3rd this week and is performing much better once the next pair of shoes needs to come off, 4 weeks time, he will be going barefoot for the rest of the winter. My farrier feels having no shoes will allow the heels to continue to develop without the need for any more corrective shoeing and the owners are happy to go down this route, vet was not so keen but is going along with it, at some point we will do more x rays to see how the pedal bones are doing, if they do not improve then possibly more shoes will be required.

He is 14 and competing BE 90/ 100 just completed his last 4 events looking great and very happy on the firm ground.
 
I took the shoes of mine, he came back into work last week. Best thing I ever done and my vet suggested barefoot. I wouldn't use wedges at all they put a lot off strain on other parts. My lad is also a tb and he's going nicely.
 
Steer clear of wedges. The foot will look better with the heels artificially raised but the back of the foot will still be weak and prone to strain.

What you need to do is encourage the soft tissues at the back of the foot to develop and strengthen. The only way I know how to do this is by taking the shoes off and starting gentle exercise on a variety of surfaces, using boots and pads if necessary for a heel first landing. There may be other shoeing options available to you but it's not something I'm familiar with.
 
IMO you neither need to go barefoot or need wedges - just find a decent farrier . The majority of farriers do not shoe well at all . Only a tiny percentage of them really know what they are doing with their shoeing.
 
F was diagnosed last November with collapsed heels and some reverse rotation of the pedal bone.

Later with poss DJD of the coffin joint.

We treated with bar shoes until January and only walk work.. lameness improved from 4/10 to 2/10 until work increased 4/10.
coffin joint injected with HA+steroid = lameness reduced to 1/10 ish when only walk work. but increased to 3-4/10 again as work increased.
March.. shoes came off has been sound ever since although just started cantering. He is 19 now so we planed to take our time ;)

On the outside it looked as though his heels had improved in bar shoes and the feet generally looked better. BUT I think internal structures of the foot were still lacking in their ability to do their job effectively and barefooting has enabled this to occur.

FWIW my vet was very much against wedges in the medium term (said would only use them for a couple of shoeing cycles max) and was happy for me to try the no shoes route although he had only used it for navicular previously.

There are some pics of F's feet on rockysmum recent thread.
 
Interesting to me, my horse has a collapsed heel and has since ive had her (January) ive just found a new farrier im hoping who will help with this.

She was lame (although it was a tweak in the field) the heel hasnt caused lameness as yet- shes only 6.
 
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