Does anyone have experience of a horse with a fractured vertebra?

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Blythwind

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Hi,

On Wednesday, my horse was diagnosed with a fractured vertebra and ligament damage at the very base of her mane. Her only symptoms were that she started twitching/shaking her head when touched near her withers.

Vet came out and initially suggested 7 days of bute. After that, I took her to the vets and they xrayed her and did an ultrasound scan.

Does anyone else have any experience of this? Did you horse come right with time? How did you manage it?

Thanks!
 
One of my horses had 3 fractured vertebrae in Spring this year aka fractured withers. We think he did it ars*ng about in the field and went over on a hard bit.

He is a poncey ex-racehorse so hurts himself at every opportunity and usually does a thorough job :rolleyes:

The xrays showed 3 clean breaks across the 3 bones. We buted, gave anti inflammatories, and didn't ride him for 2 months. He healed incredibly quickly with laser treatment 2 x a week and came back into full work without any problems. He is now back to normal (elementary dressage and some jumping) but did have quite a bit of physio and saddle refitting to ensure he was comfortable.

He was turned out as normal, but not rugged as this obviously would have caused pain. Not so easy this time of year, but a big thick foam pad could work if you could fix it to rug and make sure rug has an integral neck to minimise pressure.
 
Mixed bag re neck fractures in general BUT I know two with fractured spinal processes (the sticky up bits) at the withers who were rideable. Is this what your mare has done. One was being ridden before diagnosis and it was a surprise. The other was X-rayed after turning over on a hard surface. In both cases the fractures were relatively uncomplicated. Another had lots of "bits" floating around - he had "behavioural" issues and loss of performance over fences and was X-rayed after a chiropractor felt he had not made expected progress. He was operated on and, as far as I know, returned to use.

A vet told me it's probably more common than we think for horses to damage the spinal processed by falling but unless there is reason to look it may go undetected. The fact that your horse was functioning well before diagnosis is positive.
 
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