Does this sound like typical bone spavin or PSD?

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Greymare15

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Hi there,

Can anyone with experience of bone spavin or psd lend any advice?

I have a mare diagnosed with bone spavin on left hind. X-rays showed inflammation but no boney changes. She looks sound at walk and trot in straight line but clearly lame on circle and after flexion. She showed major improvement after hock joint was blocked.

Nerve blocking hind however through up the fact she was mildly bilaterally lame in front. Nerve blocked coffin joints and she came sound. X-rays showed inflammation to coffin joint but again no boney changes.

Vet recommended steroid injections to coffin joints first and then commence walking rehab for 6 weeks whilst being turned out 24/7. She came sound in both fronts pretty quickly.

Vet then medicated hock joint and recommended continuing with walking rehab. We are now up to 40 min walking hacks 5 days per week and she remains out 24/7, but she isn't showing any real improvement 6 weeks in.

As she reacted so positively to injections to fronts I am a bit of a loss as to why hind hasn't worked so well and this weekend I have been pondering whether there is perhaps something else going on and have been reading about psd...

One of the things that I have noticed is that walking on Tarmac she looks and feels sound and comfortable but the minute she is on soft ground I.e the field she seems to really struggle, she won't use her hind quarters correctly, sort of drags herself along in front...it's hard to explain but it definitely feels more laboured....

I am going to call my vet for a chat tomorrow but in the meantime for any of you with experience of bone spavin is it typical for horses to struggle in soft ground compared to walk?
 
Well my lad has spavins in both hocks. Plus probably arthritis in the front too.
He had steroids and tildren as whilst they appeared to free up his movement etc neither actually made him sound.
My horse definitely finds softer ground harder esp when ridden.
I suppose it's the movement in the ground and mud that makes things harder plus it is generally harder to walk on soft un supported ground compared to flat hard Tarmac. I don't ride round the fields as soon as it gets wet as he finds it far too hard.l. He also finds it harder on uneven tufty ground. We stick to the roads. I also notice in the field he will pick and choose his path thru the mud. My horse often has a toe drag when turned out.
So in our case yes he finds it harder on soft ground. He isn't lame tho, just finds it harder. But we are 4 yrs down the line since diagnosis so have found what works and what doesn't. Good luck x
 
mine was similar to yours, blocked hocks and came sound, nothing major on xrays, believed mild spavins so medicated. no improvement after 4 weeks walking work after medicating. the short of a very long story is we ended up mri the hocks to find he had mild bilateral psd. vet said they believed the block for the joint had also blocked the top of the suspensorys and with both conditions being mild they could not differentiate.
has yours been bone scanned ?
if not it may be worth considering as mine turned out to have mild kissing spines and sacroiliac inflammation which often go hand and hand with these sort of hind limb problems.
good luck, i hope yours is straight forwards spavin as psd can be a long bumpy road
 
Hi whiteflower.....that's interesting as I have been reading about similar cases re the nerve blocking ...no bone scan yet, they wanted me to keep her walking until the end of January and then reassess...did/has yours come right?
 
Hi pc2003, thanks for replying. In a strange way that's good to here as for some reason I had convinced myself bone spavin would present worse on hard ground...we have no choice re walking down through two fields for a hack on the lanes as its our only route to avoid a busy a road...its a pain as if we could avoid it I'm convinced it would ease recovery ��
 
It's so hard. We lived a nightmare for about 2 years. Ours was not a straight forward diagnosis or case. Still isn't.
I actually got off the other day coming back down the field as it was fairly boggy and he clearly finds that so hard. Absolutely fine when back on road.
My mum has arthritis in her knees and she finds walking on soft surfaces much harder.
I think whatever it is, it's probably exasperated on softer surfaces. Soft uneven surfaces vs solid Tarmac I think the first will always be harder regardless of the condition.
My horse has also has had si and kissing spine issues prob as a result of hock issues so do agree they prob go hand in hand
 
Greymare15 said:
Hi whiteflower.....that's interesting as I have been reading about similar cases re the nerve blocking ...no bone scan yet, they wanted me to keep her walking until the end of January and then reassess...did/has yours come right?
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i wasted a lot of time with shockwave which improved things but as soon as he had a hoolie during his rehab he went unlevel again so back to square one. i went for surgery. he has been fully sound since surgery, no complications as far as that is concerned. the problem is since we have removed pain from the psd it became obvious the sacroiliac and kissing spines were more significant than we thought. im still going down the long road of rehab for those with physio as i dont feel the kissing spines is significant enough to risk surgery. we have made significant progress but i think im still a long way off returning to the competition horse he was. im in no hurry, just the fact hes comfortable is all i want and being able to ride him is just a bonus. im tentatively aiming for some unaffiliated dressage in the spring and see ow we go
 
whiteflower said:
mine was similar to yours, blocked hocks and came sound, nothing major on xrays, believed mild spavins so medicated. no improvement after 4 weeks walking work after medicating. the short of a very long story is we ended up mri the hocks to find he had mild bilateral psd. vet said they believed the block for the joint had also blocked the top of the suspensorys and with both conditions being mild they could not differentiate.
has yours been bone scanned ?
if not it may be worth considering as mine turned out to have mild kissing spines and sacroiliac inflammation which often go hand and hand with these sort of hind limb problems.
good luck, i hope yours is straight forwards spavin as psd can be a long bumpy road
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I think this kind of finding is not uncommon, sadly.

For a couple of hundred quid you could get the suspensory scanned on ultrasound and you would have more of an idea of what you were dealing with then.
 
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