Devastated, Rising 5yo diagnosed with DJD. Any advice please

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NELSON11

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Update on my boy, He is a 17.2hh TBxWB who is 5 shortly, he was sent away to be backed and produced last June. He only came home to me 6 weeks ago and I thought something wasn't right.

He had scuffed all his hind toes out and was dragging his feet, Esp in Trot and was very resistful in hind limb flexion. I spoke to the professional yard who had him and said I thought there was something wrong with him when I got him home, to which they said they had thought he was dragging his hind limbs whilst he was there learning his education a bit but put it down to being big young horse.

I also find it strange their farrier never commented on his feet as he was attended to there every 6 weeks, it was the first thing my farrier did the week I picked him up.

Anyway £5k down the line having him produced I have had him xrayed and he has bilateral DJD in his hock joints. He cannot do anything now for 12 months apart from walk in a straight line and begins steroid injections/Adequan/Tildren etc next week.

So I am gutted, was hoping he would BE this year. Spent the last 2 days crying and feel like I have just wasted all my life savings.

So can anyone share similar experiences/light at the end of the tunnel experiences. Vet thinks if we treat his 5th year lightly, he may compete as a 6yo. Who knows!!!!

At the moment I would be happy to just be able to sit on him.

Please help any advice/ Good/Bad

Thank you
 
How awful for you.
I havent had any experience of this but my friend has. Her horse isnt a competition horse so Im not sure if he would stand up to that type of work but 9 mths on, he is sound and hacking out again. She had the Tildren etc and was losing hope as if anything he seemed to be getting worse but a 2nd lot of xrays shown the hock was fusing and now he is sound.
Good luck with your horse, I hope everything works out for you
 
Fusion of the joints would stop the pain but surely it would stiffen the action too much for competitive work? I am so sorry to hear of this problem in such a young horse, you must be devastated. I'm surprised this wasn't picked up at the yard where he was being produced, I'd want to question more about how that happened...maybe you could get some of your money refunded. They had a duty of care and it seems to me they didn't meet it.
 
My mare also has DJD in both hocks (spavins) and in one hind fetlok. Last summer she was actually lame with it and although she is a willing obedient little creature, her hind end just couldn't go forwards with her front end. My vet is rather wonderful and gave her steroid joint injections, Tildren and she is on a prescription supplement called Synequin. The farrier also helps - shorter toes to aid breakover and seated out (possibly?) on the hinds to do something or other else. (Fortunately my farrier understands this much better than I do). I keep her moving a lot - if she isn't turned out we do a lot of long slow hacks. I also got her magnetic stable chaps which do seem to make some difference - if she has been in she comes out less stiff if she has had them on.
So, from lame broken pony of last summer, to today when she went round RAF Halton and jumped like a stag, even the plane (she is 20 and 14hh) and my instructor says she is looking great - well all I can say is I love my vet. Don't lose faith, trust your vet and try the treatments, that's what insurance is for. There's a lot they can do and I don't believe that competing your horse is such a lost dream. Good luck.
 
Sorry to hear your news. My experience doesn't have a happy ending i'm afraid. I am not going to tell you this to scare you but this was my story.

I too had a 5yr old that went lame, she had been backed slowly etc. Anyway, after a little while of trying to diagnose what the problem was we took her to O'Gormans for a thorough going over. It made me cry to watch her being trotted us and lunged as she was so lame.

She was only lame in her left fore. Anyway, after an arthoscopy (sp) she was dianosed with DJD but hers was so bad that some of the bone had already broken off and she had very little cartalidge left. The final report was that she had a very poor prognosis of returning to soundness. We could have tried i-wrap etc but i saw the look on the vets face. So we came to the heartbreaking decision to PTS. She was only 5yrs old and not the type that you could just turn away for years on end and i also didn't want to breed from her as there was little evidence at that time that it was hereditary.

I took the decision as she was in pain and at the end of the day she couldn't be cured.

However, it does depend the the severity of the lameness and what your vets advise. Mine was brilliant and when i said i think PTS is the right choice she was so relieved.

Horses can be heartbreaking as your love for them is never ending.

I really really hope you have a happy ending. Please do keep us posted
xxx
 
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