kellyb
Active Member
Hi, I am going to try to summarise our issues to keep this from getting way too long so if I accidentally leave out some important info, please just let me know.
We have a Haflinger gelding (my daughter's hore), 11 years old. He has a very aggressive spavin in his right hock and has had it for a bit over 2 years. The other hock apparently has fused and we had no idea anything was even wrong with that one. It may have happened before we had him. For this Spavin he has had 2 treatments of Tildren, a dose of "Osphos" , was on danilon for some time then that was stopped as he seemed to improve a little, then had a rather sudden setback and got very bad again. The vet prescribed bute and we have been giving that to him for a few months. We did stop for awhile to see how it would go but he was in alot of pain so we started it up again. the idea was that the joint would fuse after a year - year and a half and he would be fine enough for my daughter to continue riding.
He has also had allergies which we think are now a sort of sweet itch. We have had the vet out numerous times for the allergies over the years. They have taken a skin scrape and it is not a parasite. It was not textbook sweet itch but seems to now be going that way. His skin is black beneath his coat so sometimes he just has black areas all over his face from sores and rubbing at his face. The allergies are extremely bad right now with large sore areas over his rump and all over really. He has fly rug but he tears them very quickly and sometimes his field companion removes them for him! The midgies seem to find any holes are in there in a second.
I should add that we have used all manner of fly repellant, anti-itch formulas and soothing/healing creams, none of which seem strong enough to combat this problem. We have also paid for a weeks worth of antihistamine for him but that had very little, if any effect.
About 5 weeks ago I saw him, for the first time ever, licking or eating a little hole of mud/soil he had created. He looked particularly miserable and his leg was very bad. He seemed to be barely able to walk though he was standing and his other leg was a bit swollen. He was also suffering form his allergies quite badly.
I called our vet, who has treated our horse since we have had him and he felt, without seeing him in person, that the other leg was swollen from bearing the brunt of the bad leg. He said it may be that the allergies which have become such an issue may be due to the stress of the leg for such a long time. He suggested that it was time to "put him to sleep".
After much deliberating I decided to get the opinion from another vet at a different practise. This vet said that he would treat him with a steroid injection into the hock which may also help to stop the itching. I told him our vet had said that he would not recommend steroids due to the possibility of laminitis. Our horse is not particularly overweight but as a haflinger he is a well built chap and definitely not the slim type! He has never had laminitis since we have had him. I called our first vet back and talked to them about the steroid option but they were not keen at all to try them, saying that within a couple days our horse could be laying in the field suffering a terrible case of laminitis which would leave him in agony. ......
The worry is: the hock is not fusing but instead is getting worse (we had xrays which confirmed that about 8 months ago). Sometimes he can barely walk around, literally, and looks very unhappy. He has also not been his usual self for sometime...BUT sometimes he is walking ok and is a bit better. We go over to his field to see him expecting to see something awful but instead he is grazing and looking like he is not too bad. The itching is obviously very bad and really getting him down. It does seriously affect his quality of life and makes him miserable. We are unable to control it at the moment, no matter what we do..washes,creams, coats etc.
When he has the good days we think there is no way we could put him "to sleep"!! But then he has the bad days and we think it is cruel to keep him going.
Does anyone have any experience with any of these issues? Particularly the use of the steroids and the possibility of laminitis?
I tried to keep that from getting too long but Im afraid there was a lot of info to share...sorry.
We have a Haflinger gelding (my daughter's hore), 11 years old. He has a very aggressive spavin in his right hock and has had it for a bit over 2 years. The other hock apparently has fused and we had no idea anything was even wrong with that one. It may have happened before we had him. For this Spavin he has had 2 treatments of Tildren, a dose of "Osphos" , was on danilon for some time then that was stopped as he seemed to improve a little, then had a rather sudden setback and got very bad again. The vet prescribed bute and we have been giving that to him for a few months. We did stop for awhile to see how it would go but he was in alot of pain so we started it up again. the idea was that the joint would fuse after a year - year and a half and he would be fine enough for my daughter to continue riding.
He has also had allergies which we think are now a sort of sweet itch. We have had the vet out numerous times for the allergies over the years. They have taken a skin scrape and it is not a parasite. It was not textbook sweet itch but seems to now be going that way. His skin is black beneath his coat so sometimes he just has black areas all over his face from sores and rubbing at his face. The allergies are extremely bad right now with large sore areas over his rump and all over really. He has fly rug but he tears them very quickly and sometimes his field companion removes them for him! The midgies seem to find any holes are in there in a second.
I should add that we have used all manner of fly repellant, anti-itch formulas and soothing/healing creams, none of which seem strong enough to combat this problem. We have also paid for a weeks worth of antihistamine for him but that had very little, if any effect.
About 5 weeks ago I saw him, for the first time ever, licking or eating a little hole of mud/soil he had created. He looked particularly miserable and his leg was very bad. He seemed to be barely able to walk though he was standing and his other leg was a bit swollen. He was also suffering form his allergies quite badly.
I called our vet, who has treated our horse since we have had him and he felt, without seeing him in person, that the other leg was swollen from bearing the brunt of the bad leg. He said it may be that the allergies which have become such an issue may be due to the stress of the leg for such a long time. He suggested that it was time to "put him to sleep".
After much deliberating I decided to get the opinion from another vet at a different practise. This vet said that he would treat him with a steroid injection into the hock which may also help to stop the itching. I told him our vet had said that he would not recommend steroids due to the possibility of laminitis. Our horse is not particularly overweight but as a haflinger he is a well built chap and definitely not the slim type! He has never had laminitis since we have had him. I called our first vet back and talked to them about the steroid option but they were not keen at all to try them, saying that within a couple days our horse could be laying in the field suffering a terrible case of laminitis which would leave him in agony. ......
The worry is: the hock is not fusing but instead is getting worse (we had xrays which confirmed that about 8 months ago). Sometimes he can barely walk around, literally, and looks very unhappy. He has also not been his usual self for sometime...BUT sometimes he is walking ok and is a bit better. We go over to his field to see him expecting to see something awful but instead he is grazing and looking like he is not too bad. The itching is obviously very bad and really getting him down. It does seriously affect his quality of life and makes him miserable. We are unable to control it at the moment, no matter what we do..washes,creams, coats etc.
When he has the good days we think there is no way we could put him "to sleep"!! But then he has the bad days and we think it is cruel to keep him going.
Does anyone have any experience with any of these issues? Particularly the use of the steroids and the possibility of laminitis?
I tried to keep that from getting too long but Im afraid there was a lot of info to share...sorry.