DDFT tears in both front feet

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alhijaz

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My horse was diagnosed with DDFT tears in both front feet 18 months ago by CT scan. He is no better now than when he was first diagnosed after following instructions from the vet at the hospital, my vet and my farrier who are all supposedly the best in the area. He did 6 months box rest in wedge shoes with 2 x 10 minute walks a day on concrete. Followed by 6 months in a very small paddock over the summer. During this period he wasn't lame and didn't need any pain killers i thought things could only get better but how wrong i was. He started looking footy again at the end of the summer last year, i had to start giving him bute again and he is still on it now. I was told to keep him in wedges and to try and keep him quiet and give bute for the pain which i have done for the last 6 months to no avail and then 6 weeks ago he got laminitis but not due to grass. My vet says it is because of the damage already inside the feet. He's been back on box rest since then. We removed the wedge shoes and is now in normal shoes and pads to help with the laminitis. He is in a worse state now than 18 months ago when he first got diagnosed with the DDFT tears as now nobody seems to know if and when the laminitis will also re occur.

I am at my wits end and can't believe that 18 months down the line after basically nothing but rest and remedial shoeing there is no improvement and he is also now prone to laminitis.

I have read about barefoot and would love to try it but every time i mention it to my farrier and vet they say it would never work as he is a Thoroughbred and has very flat feet which are sensitive and have too much damage. I can't afford to send him to Rockley as i have already claimed on my insurance for the CT scans etc.

When he is eventually over the laminitis i personally don't know what i'm going to do with him where do you go with a retired horse that is only 15 and fit and well but just won't come sound enough to be off pain killers and if gets turned out is at risk of further lameness and laminitis!!!

All i want is my poor horse to have a pain free retirement with turnout during the day and a nice warm stable at night but how can i achieve that when any kind of movement makes him lame and now prone to laminitis it is a living nightmare.

I do not want to have him put to sleep and feel confident that there must be a way as i have read countless posts on the internet where horses have a decent life after this type of injury so why can mine not be the same.

If anybody at all can help me please get in touch as this living nightmare is driving me insane and any advice from anybody that has or is currently going through the same thing would help no end.
 
Talk to an EP, that's all you can do. Laminitis strains are exacerbated with shoes (particularly wedges) - not sure about the other issues - but tendons certainly appreciate the absence of shoes.

I was told warm bloods "couldn't" either - and I've yet to meet a vet who "got it" - bar the trimmer who started vet school! :D
 
What a horrible experience. With your vet and farrier not open to other options all I can suggest is a second opinion and contact some trimmers who are experienced in laminitis and DDFT tear (hoof health) rehab. Rockley may be able to help with recommendations and how to go about getting the help you need.
 
To be honest, I would try him barefoot as it doesn't sound like you have anything to lose. My grey tore a large hole in the centre of his DDFT on a hind leg, he had surgery (with something injected, cannot remember what it was called though) and then was supposed to be on box rest and controlled walks etc. but he got too wound up being stabled so after about 3 months he re-tweaked it whilst pratting about on the lead one day. So I ended up chucking him out in a very small paddock 24/7 and still doing the daily walks whereupon he was so much calmer. I definately feel this helped aid his recovery as he was just charging round his stable otherwise and I believe a lot of healing comes from being happy mentally, if they're miserable then nothing seems to work! Mine was barefoot throughout - well I should say he was just unshod and trimmed by my farrier (he wasn't trimmed by a barefoot trimmer which one of my ponies is). I'd take your ones shoes off and just see how he gets on. It doesn't sound like he can get much worse at the moment and the current method doesn't seem to be working so why not. I'd also chuck him out in a tiny paddock with barely any grass to pick at but lots of hay, just being able to move about might help. The vets were very doom and gloom about my greys future, they told me straight away it was career ending and that it was 50:50 if we got him sound enough even to hack gently. That was 2 years ago and I just did two intro dressage tests at an event last weekend which was just amazing that he could be so sound (touch wood - I know they are very weakened so I will never jump him again or do any fast work). Mine is 16 now. Have you had yours tested for cushings? Might be worth it just to rule that out as a cause of the lami, I lost one of ours a few months ago who had cushings - by the end she just kept getting laminitis even though she was totally off the grass and had very very minimal sugar diet etc. :(

Might be worth just doing what you think is best here OP, farriers are often anti-barefoot for some reason. Not always for the best of the horse though... And vets often haven't seen many with the particular injury so don't really know! Even the big vets my horse was sent to for surgery, they had only seen 1 other horse with the exact injury mine had hence they admitted they didn't really know what the outcome would be! At the end of the day its your horse and if things they have suggested are not working and the only thing you're left considering is PTS then you might as well try other stuff. x
 
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DDFT tears bilaterally aren't an accident, they're the result of how his feet are balanced and/or the shoes he is wearing. You've tried everything the vets/farriers can offer with no improvement. Now it's time to take matters into your own hands. If you tell your vet you're going to de shoe and see how he goes I bet he'll support you, and I bet your horse will improve. Restricted grazing, supplemented with hay because of the laminitis, shoes off and turn him out. What have you got to lose?
 
My Thoroughbred is barefoot and does absolutely everything, including jumping and long distance work over relatively hard and rocky ground. She was sensitive over rocky ground for the first year. Now her feet are rock hard.

When I bought her, I was told by vet that her feet were to soft/weak/white (four white socks) to go barefoot.

I am not barefoot by choice, she eats farriers and I got to the point where I couldn't sedate her every time she pulled a shoe off her weak feet.

Her feet are great now!
 
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