Does anyone else ignore their vet?!

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kit279

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Having walked my lovely 11 year old TB to the vet today despite gale force winds (using several tubes of Polos), my lovely vet tells me that he probably has arthritis, navicular and a heart murmur... Now, call me heartless, but my boy has been happily hooning about this field with my buddy and been out hunting and hacking like there's nothing wrong. Incidentally, he's only lame when she lunges him on the tarmac.. Don't get me wrong, the day he's miserable and hobbling about the field in pain and hates life, is the day I have him PTS. But in the meantime, he's in good condition and loves his work. I'm not ambitious for him (or me!) and he has a home for life with me - so I made the decision today not to put him through endless nerve blocks and scans and operations and just to let him get on with it and see how he gets on. So I ignore my vet! Does anyone else?! Or am I a bad person who lets my horses suffer?!
 
If he's comfortable and happy and it's not causing any problems with him doing what you want or his quality of life then fair enough.
 
Oh, and by the way, he only went to the vet to get a flu jab!!!! Not because there was anything wrong!
 
Our vet diagnosed our labrador with cardiomiopathy (a heart murmur) about 4-5 years ago and suggested scans, then tablets which would cost £1 a day for the rest of his 'limited' life. So we ignored them and carried on as before; he's now 12, and last time we had it checked last year the heart score was the same (ie it had got no worse in 4 years) and what he lacked in terms of heart condition he makes up for as he has no arthritis (pretty amazing for a lab!). He still enjoys a mooch 'round the field in the morning and runs out of the horses way if they go out before he's back!! I think we know our animals better than vets do in terms of how they're 'feeling' so go for it and take a view if anything changes.
 
When my vet told me that Marsden 'probably' had arthiritis and needed to go for scans, x-rays and so on, AND would never jump again, I ignored him!
Marsden was never lame and was happy and continued to jump BSJA and XC till the day he died! Some times we know better about our horses!
 
When you are worried, call the vet.....but one who you have some sort of rapport with. Some vets treat all horses like racehorses, when actually, they are perfectly fit for purpose, it is just that our purpose may be at a lesser pace.

Maybe think about a supplement for joints/similar if your horse has a risk of arthritus and navicular is a syndrome, rather than a specific illness and can be well managed and successfully dealt with for years without becoming a show stopper - be sensible, no jumping on hard ground/obvious stuff etc

Ref the heart murmur - not uncommon at all....they are animals not machines, and rarely perfect specimens....

Be sensible and enjoy your horse - and call the vet if you become concerned about anything.
 
hi i know how you feel i which i had done that with my mare, she is 13 and has sidebone and ringbone, she went to the vets in november as she has difficulty turning tightly and she is lame on a circle,the vet had her lunged for 20mins then he did nerve blocks then lunged again, this was repeated about 3 times and she was getting worse and worse, then they did scans then lunged her again. after all this the vet told me she had ringbone and sidebone (he told me that he was 80% sure before he did anything) and that she should have tests, it took her a week to recover but she is fine now i still hack and the vet said she could hunt as long as she is not jumped or schooled, so i am just seeing how she goes.so yes i do (or which i had)ignore the vet!
 
Our German Shepherd was diagnosed with spongolosis (sp?) - nasty back problem - at the age of 3, and the vet told us we would be lucky if she lived another year. She was put down, 9 years later, at the age of 12, having lived a full, active and relatively painless life.
Sometimes I think vets are very quick to write off an animal because of a clinical diagnosis - but then they dont know the individual as the owner does. That vet may be going on the basis of having known other, less life-loving and active horses who have suffered greatly with these ailments, whereas your horse may well be able to overcome these simply with the force of his personality.

It does seem strange to me that, on a routine vacc. visit, the vet said he 'probably' had all these conditions.
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She had some vet students with her and wanted to do a full work up on him so they could practise... eye roll! I figured it couldn't hurt... Anyway he enjoyed the fuss, especially the stethoscopes which looked very yummy!
 
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She had some vet students with her and wanted to do a full work up on him so they could practise... eye roll! I figured it couldn't hurt... Anyway he enjoyed the fuss, especially the stethoscopes which looked very yummy!

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Are you sure she didnt just announce these 'findings' for the benefit of her students?!?! I really wouldnt worry; if your horse had nothing noticeably wrong with him prior to this visit, I would carry on as normal. How she can diagnose navicular, arthritis AND a heart murmur all on the same day, and without secondary testing, is beyond me. I think she sounds way out of order!
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QWell I'm guessing the problem is a heart murmur, is he going to drop dead on you or fall over a jump due to exhaustion.
Arthritis and navicular, is it going to cause him pain when ridden, particularly jumping?
I would want to satisfy myself that there was no problems with the above queries before just ignoring the vet...
 
I don't ignore the vet....I'd be more likely to discuss things with them if I didn't agree.
The only thing I do, is not give my old mare the bute that enthusiastic young vets occasionally proscribe - firstly she never eats it, secondly, orally injecting it isn't very good for them, thirdly the oral tubes (ready made ones) are extortionate and she spits them out, and fourthly, if I do get it into her, it has no effect anyway.
Her drug of choice is Finadyne...she wants to bankrupt me.
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Hi...I dont ignore my vet...but then I get my vet out/talk to them for specific problems/queries. But I expect my vet to take in to account my horses individual needs and characteristics...which they are aware of!!!
I am amazed how your vet could tell all that by one session..and without you even asking for it!!!
I know a horse of 32 years old with a heart murmur (she did long-distance/endurance)...with her you just have to be careful about giving any sedation as she will just go out cold if not small enough amount used.
 
If your horse is lame being lunged on a hard surface then a follow up would be well worth your while. It doesn't have to be expensive or involve surgery. However may involve nerve blocks and a few scans - neither of which are big deals.

Why wouldn't you want to find out what was wrong and try and rectify it if you could???
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Hmm, well part of the reason I'm not keen to put him through the full works, is because even if he has all of the above, there's not a great deal of treatment for them. My dad was an equine vet for 25 years and was always very old school about it (examination, diagnosis, bute and box rest) whereas I think the younger vets tend to throw the full diagnostic arsenal at the problem but there aren't a great deal more treatments than there were in my dad's day. He's well shod and well fed and I'd certainly notice if he was lame but he's never going to go to Badminton so I don't know that I want to try and fix everything for the sake of it. No such thing as a perfect ever-sound horse!
 
there are lots of horses that are 100% sound, I think ignoring the fact there is something not normal is avoiding the issue. There are advances now in both diagnosis in treatment, this is like saying no advances in human medicine!
 
well i am a medic and there haven't been that many human medicine breakthroughs since penicillin! And even that was discovered by accident! Seriously though, there's no "cure" for navicular or a heart murmur or even really arthritis, only good management and I try to do that for all of mine.
 
my horse has a small heart murmur but he has never had any problems with it. i work him very hard most nights and u wouldnt know it was there.
 
but what if it isnt either of those but something else?
I'm sorry I think it is irresponsible (particularly when he is lame when lunged on a circle) not to investigate further.
 
I was told by a vet to have my mare PTS as she would not cope with retirement that was about 5 years ago!! She loves being a field ornament she is well fed has the best rugs and a big comfy stable, she is now 28 and acts 10yrs younger, she is a pampered princess and thats how it will stay untill she tells me she is ready to go, she gave me years of fun etc and she deserves a good retirement, im sure she laughs when i get my cob out to ride.... Just think if i had listened to my vet??
 
Actually, further to this, I think I know why my horse came up lame on the tarmac today... Just spoke to my dad (attempting to persuade him to stop pretending to be retired and come and give me a 2nd opinion!) and he said 'didn't your TB get thwacked on the leg by a sprung loaded gate yesterday?!' and so I went and checked that leg (the one my vet thought was arthritic/navicular) and sure enough there is a nasty bruise coming up on it!
 
Sometimes, yes.
The thing is, we are almost lead to believe that Vets are god like creatures when infact they are humans trying to do the best with what info they have.
Some are ever so good at what they do and some are not. Much like any profession really.
I have got to a stage where I will only have certain vets to see my animals and they will be the vets that I know I can have a decent conversation with. If I do disagree with a vets diagnosis as my gut says different, then I will go to someone else for a second opinion.

Normally my gut instinct is right but I expect it has also been wrong, but we tend to forget those moments, don't we!
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QR

So, your vet made some diagnosis, what was his recommendation? Are you disagreeing/ignoring the diagnosis or the recommendations?
 
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