Dilemma: De-nerving?

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Zuzzie

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Hi everyone,
For nearly 2 years now Ive been trying to get my 17 yr old warmblood gelding sound. Started off with just a slight, almost invisible, unlevelness in his school work. Had been working advanced medium dressage. Got progressively worse. Foot balance was not good as he has really terrible front feet. Had to sack my farrier in the end and get another. He had all the usual investigative work done: Xrays, Ultrasound etc. Confirmed arthritis in the right fore but needed MRI to check collateral ligaments. Tried joint injections which were brilliant at first but eventually they would only last a couple of months instead of 6 or 8 months.
Eventually he was diagnosed with coll lig damage (but not bad). Had PRP but that didnt work. Box rested for 3 months with 3 sessions of shock wave. Came out of box last Wednesday totally crippled. Worse than when he went in! Vat was gobsmacked - first time ever that he has seen a horse come out like that.
Vet now says 2 options available: IRAP or neurectomy.
I dont have much faith in IRAP as the outcome is not guaranteed and it is wildly expensive. Considering de-nerving as alternative.
Some of you will no doubt recommend the barefoot route but Im not sure that this will help the arthritis? what would you do??
 
I would contact Nic Barker at Rockley farm and talk to her about your horse before you decide about your next step. She has a good website/blog that you can look at first. I don't know if barefoot would help, but Nic will if anyone does, and it would be daft to do lots more expensive and/or irreversible things before you've tried the simplest possible answer.
 
There is a reason some of us recommend the barefoot route.

If you haven't already tried it and the horse is already lame - what have you got to lose?

Email Nic at Rockley - if only for a chat. She is happy to do that.

She has rehabilitated col lig damage with success.
 
There is not enough research to say barefoot will help, but there is not enough research to support a lot of things we do. There is enough anecdotal evidence to say it might help so why not give it a go. As has been said - what have you got to loose? De-nerving is a very invasive procedure and it is still always an option, why not try barefoot first before going for that? If it does not help then you can always consider de-nerving afterwards.
 
Can't give any advice per se, but just a thought, given that arthritis is bone pain nd neurectomy is more for the benefit of soft tissue pain, realistically how much improvement is there likely to be? Just a thought...
 
I feel really uneasy when people talk about denerving. Remember that there is no going back once you have done it. Try everything else first.

Its little bit like cutting the wire to stop a warning light coming on in your car. The fault is still there.

I know its a simplistic way of looking at things, but as ive already said, denerving makes me uneasy.
 
Zuzzie,

I would be very interested in what you do with your horse, my PSG horse has been off work for nearly 18 months now with lameness, come to a dead end with him.
My vet suggested de nerving but I wasnt happy to go down that route as he could injure himself further and not know plus tripping etc could become a problem in work.

Would really like to know what you decide to do, at the moment I am faced with quite a negative outlook but I refuse to give up just yet!!!
 
If it were my horse I would want to try everything before considering de-nerving.

What do you have to lose by trying barefoot? You can always put shoes back on.

It's so frustrating when people just dismiss things because they don't like the sound of it (not you OP, in general)
There is a lovely lady at my livery yard who has both her horses out of work due to foot related problems (one navicular, one collateral ligaments in foot). Both shod by same farrier, both awful feet. I very tentatively mentioned Rockley Farm but was met with a blank stare and a 'my horses can't live without their shoes' comment.

I resisted the urge to say they are not living very well WITH their shoes on.......!
 
As a livery at the last yard I was at found, denerving means loss of sensation in the foot as well - so the horse doesn't know when it is doing damage.

Maybe better try the low impact approach before the irreversible one. But get folks who know what they are doing to help you rather than just whipping the shoes off.

Please give Nic Barker a call. I've seen her results first hand.
 
My 18 yr old tb went barefoot last Oct, went to Rockley Farm in December. He has Navicular changes, arthritis and sidebone!. He is back in work, hacking out sound, still a bit uneaven in the school as he is still growing his new hoof but he is 100 times happier and comfortable than this time last year when he was stuck in heart bars and gel pads! Give it a go, there is nothing to loose :-)
 
My horse had damage to collateral ligaments in both feet (as well as ddft and dsil) and came back from Rockley last summer.
He'd been lame for about 18 months before he went there and if anything was getting worse.

This was him on Friday making his jumping debut.

Patchettsapril.jpg
 
imafluffybunny said:
Zuzzie,

I would be very interested in what you do with your horse, my PSG horse has been off work for nearly 18 months now with lameness, come to a dead end with him.
My vet suggested de nerving but I wasnt happy to go down that route as he could injure himself further and not know plus tripping etc could become a problem in work.

Would really like to know what you decide to do, at the moment I am faced with quite a negative outlook but I refuse to give up just yet!!!
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I am still undecided but will keep you advised. I will have another talk tomorrow with the vet as I do have some more questions which are troubling me.

Just for your info, I was told by my vet that he will nerve block the foot first to see just where the pain is at its lowest level. Once he has located that point the nerve would be cut there. From information I have gathered on the internet it seems that if the nerve is cut low then the foot is not de-sensitised in the toe area - any higher and the sensation is affected over a wider area. My vet assures me that the horse will still be able to feel where his foot is - its only the pain that is deadened.

It really is a rotten decision to have to make.
I have emailed Nic at Rockley Farm asking for her advice and am awaiting a reply.
 
criso said:
My horse had damage to collateral ligaments in both feet (as well as ddft and dsil) and came back from Rockley last summer.
He'd been lame for about 18 months before he went there and if anything was getting worse.



Hi: thanks so much for your input - glad to hear that your horse is doing so well. He looks great.
Can you tell me how long he was at Rockley? and, did you have your own transport to get him there?
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From what Ive seen on this forum, quite a few of the barefoot rehabs have returned to hacking, hunting and jumping but has any horse gone back to being able to do dressage?
 
Having ridden horses that was denerved at the lowest level similiar to what your vet is describing i would never ever ever again get on a horse I knew was denerved! You might be ok for some very basic dressage etc but jumping is risky and tbh after a while they become so stumbly it is horrible. The horses I rode were both done by two different vets, one in the UK who is reknowned for being good at this op so was not the case of badly done op!
 
Zuzzie said:
My vet assures me that the horse will still be able to feel where his foot is - its only the pain that is deadened.

It really is a rotten decision to have to make.
I have emailed Nic at Rockley Farm asking for her advice and am awaiting a reply.
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Your vet is minimising the issue and that's an understatement. Your horse will be able to feel where the front half of his foot is. If he treads on a broken bottle or a big nail with the back half of his foot then he will put his full weight on it without knowing it - and it may not stop until it has reached bone. Seriously, that's the reality of a horse with a neurectomy - it does not "deaden" the pain - it completely removes the pathway between the injury and the brain which would allow him to realise that he has done something damaging to himself. You will need to be extremely vigilant and check his feet constantly for anything he may have unwittingly trodden on, to get it disinfected before it causes any more problems.

Has he also told you how very often it regrows and has to be done again?

Having said that, it may be better than putting him down.

You are right, it's a rotten decision to have to make, but I am with the others. Just three months barefoot will tell you whether it is going to help him or not. He will either improve in that time and you will want to carry on, or he won't and you can have him denerved. You have only a few weeks to lose and they may be the best few weeks you ever spent.
 
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Zuzzie said:
From what Ive seen on this forum, quite a few of the barefoot rehabs have returned to hacking, hunting and jumping but has any horse gone back to being able to do dressage?
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Zuzzie I suspect I am not the only one smiling at your comment :). The reason we don't put dressage in our lists of what our horses can do after a barefoot rehab is that it is the very least of what we expect them to be able to do. It was the first thing mine could do, at 11 weeks - come second in a regional quailfier on an artificial surface. There are other horses back to eventing, doing dressage on dreadful surfaces, and I'm sure other people will answer for themselves that they forgot to mention dressage because jumping is so much tougher on a rehab horse, and to do that sound and undrugged is a fantastic outcome for horses that were still lame after drugs and remedial shoes.
 
cptrayes said:
Zuzzie I suspect I am not the only one smiling at your comment :). The reason we don't put dressage in our lists of what our horses can do after a barefoot rehab is that it is the very least of what we expect them to be able to do. It was the first thing mine could do, at 11 weeks - come second in a regional quailfier on an artificial surface. There are other horses back to eventing, doing dressage on dreadful surfaces, and I'm sure other people will answer for themselves that they forgot to mention dressage because jumping is so much tougher on a rehab horse, and to do that sound and undrugged is a fantastic outcome for horses that were still lame after drugs and remedial shoes.
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Agree with this. If rehabs proudly stated they were doing dressage, they'd get snorts of derrision and people saying "oh well, if the horse is ONLY sound enough for flatwork......"

{head bangs the desk};)

Incidently, if anyone has emailed Nic and not had a reply - she's discovered her email is down. So y'all need to resend to rockleyfarm@gmail.com instead.
 
Zuzzie, Nic Barker has posted on another forum that the email for Rockley Farm is down so I think it's worth re-sending your email to her.
 
I'm afraid once I realised I could jump Frankie, dressage got pushed aside. It's lack of ability (mine not frank's) and inclination (both of us) that means we don't do dressage not his feet.

Btw Nic's having problems with her email atm so if you don't hear she may not have got it. There's a Rockley Farm facebook page you can message her through.
 
Thank you everyone - I will try to telephone Nic tomorrow.

My vet did warn me that the nerve could grow back and I have read on other forums that this can happen within as little as 15 months so that's not great.

Re the dressage: its good to know that this will be possible if all goes well. I miss schooling (not bothered about competing) and would love to get back in the arena in the future. Even if this is not possible, just hacking a sound horse would be wonderful.
 
In answer to your question Zuzzie, Frankie was there just over 4 months, he had horrendous tb feet when he went down and then we delayed his return for a couple of weeks as I was away so he was there a bit longer than some. Since he's got back I've built the work up and waited till he had whole new hoof before jumping. Now he gets hacked probably 5 times a week, jumped once either schooling or a competition and I try to do flat work but that does get pushed aside.

I did do a little dressage test before Christmas but that was just to get him used to the venue and see how he behaved in a competition environment and if I do any (very low level) eventing then I will have to do a dressage test there. I bought him to jump and was devastated when I thought he wouldn't be able to.

Now we just do things we enjoy ;)
 
My vet assures me that the horse will still be able to feel where his foot is - its only the pain that is deadened.
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Hmmm...that's an interesting idea - so the sensations must travel up a different nerve? I think that's maybe worth challenging.
 
To be fair Zuzzie I think your 'dressage' post is a fair comment. My horse would currently be sound walking, trotting, cantering in a straight line, jumping and hacking over varied terrain. But ask him to trot a 10m circle in trot or turn tightly for a change of rein in the arena then I'd get a few lame steps. I would say that it depends on what the reason for your horses lameness is as to what is a true test of soundness - mine's collateral ligaments, so tight turns put extra strain on him.
 
I think you're right that a tight circle in trot would show up any low level lameness that wouldn't be visible in other situations and my vet used used a 10m circle in trot on hard standing to assess soundness after the rehab and he passed.

However while a horse might not appear lame in other situations I doubt a horse with compromised feet would last long jumping cross country on varied terrain, hunting several times a week or putting strain on the ligaments with tight turns in a jump off.
 
criso said:
I think you're right that a tight circle in trot would show up any low level lameness that wouldn't be visible in other situations and my vet used used a 10m circle in trot on hard standing to assess soundness after the rehab and he passed.

However while a horse might not appear lame in other situations I doubt a horse with compromised feet would last long jumping cross country on varied terrain, hunting several times a week or putting strain on the ligaments with tight turns in a jump off.
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Hmm, interesting. I think intensive dressage training, say, for competition perfection would take its toll but if I could just get in the school once a week I would be satisfied with that.
 
I think any discipline whether it's dressage or eventing or polo or endurance is going to need a high degree of soundness once you get to a certain level of training.
Anyway one result of this thread is I felt guilty about how little I school so that's what I did tonight. Spent a lot of time doing an impression of the lesser spotted hertfordshire giraffe but sound :)
Good luck Zuzzie, your aims seem very reasonable and I hope you get to a place where you can school once a week.
 
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