Dumbfounded after osteo visit.

Frenchmade said:
The vet has emailed me all the xrays so I can send them to another vet for a second opinion if I wish. I have ordered all the meds she suggested, or at least most of them, and I'll give that a try. I really don't hold out much hope that it will work on what ever is wrong but it def won't do any harm.

One of the products is Equisto Flexadin UCll which costs the princely sum of 112.00 euros online for 600g. It contains MSM and collagen. I think it's a French product. Does anyone know if there is an English equivalent? Because I've found that usually things are cheaper in the UK. I am in the UK over Christmas so could order it to be delivered and bring it back with me. All in all, the meds are going to cost 250 euros!! EEk! For one month. It's not a long term solution!
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It is available over here but checking the prices it seems more expensive than in France.
 
Zuzzie said:
Are you sure Equisto has collagen in it? are you translating from french to english? I have never heard of any equine product with collagen in it especially as it might be animal based and horses are veggies. But I could be wrong! Could it be chondroitin? If so, two of the top joint supplements which vets recommend are Synequin and Cosequin.

Synequin contains the following and costs £128 for 1000g:
Each 10g scoop contains:
Chondroitin Sulphate (95% pure) 2000mg
Glucosamine HCL (99% pure) 5000mg
N. Acetyl D. Glucosamine (99% pure) 500mg
Ascorbic Acid 570mg
Zinc Sulphate 360mg

Cosequin contains similar. Cost: £149 .99 for 700g.

So both of these are not cheap. However, there are other products which are cheaper but probably not so effective.
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Thanks for the comprehensive information. :) Yes definitely collagen.

http://www.linguee.fr/francais-anglais/traduction/collagène.html

Looks like it's a bargain here!! Good grief.
 
Zuzzie said:
Are you sure Equisto has collagen in it? are you translating from french to english? I have never heard of any equine product with collagen in it especially as it might be animal based and horses are veggies. But I could be wrong! Could it be chondroitin? If so, two of the top joint supplements which vets recommend are Synequin and Cosequin.
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Chondroitin is derived from shark cartilage - it's not exactly veggie, and one of the reasons why I won't supplement with Cortaflex. ;)
 
Casey76 said:
Chondroitin is derived from shark cartilage - it's not exactly veggie, and one of the reasons why I won't supplement with Cortaflex. ;)
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No chondroitin in it. Ingredients are

Matières premières (main ingredients)
Lactose, méthane sulfonyle méthylique (MSM) 39,6%, chlorure de potassium (potassium), collagène non dénaturé de type II (UC II®) 0,8% (collagen)

Constituants analytiques
Cendres brutes 7,3%, (ash) cendres insolubles dans HCl 5,2%,(ash soluble) matières grasses brutes 0,3% (fats), humidité 6%, (water) sodium 1%,(salts) protéines brutes 0,4%,(protein) cellulose brute 0,4%

Additifs (par kilo)
Composés d‘oligo-éléments (trace elements/minerals): Manganèse s.f. chélate de manganèse d‘acides aminés, hydraté (E5) 480 mg

Im not adverse to using collagen, even though it is not vegetable material.

However, I really do not see how it is going to help. Given together with an anti inflamatory drug, plus a muscle relaxant, it will be impossible to tell which is working and which is a waste of time and money. In addition, I fail to see how a supplement can 'cure' a possibly injured vertebrae. She didn't see him collapsing because he didn't do it when lunging for her. Sods Law!! He tripped or collapsed (impossible to see exactly whats happening without slow motion video!) at least four times today. Im working him over trotting poles, then raising alternate ends to make slightly raised poles. Apart from the tripping thing, he quickly got the hang of it and went really well. I did notice that he is really really stiff when he first starts, and improves after around 15 to 20 mins. there's no real pattern to the tripping thing.


Not sleeping again!!
 
You might think this a bit of an odd question but do you have any yew trees where the horse is kept? I had a horse with collapsing, tripping episodes that turned into falling over that finally after endless exams turned out to be poisoning from yew trees causing muscle damage.
 
Booboos said:
You might think this a bit of an odd question but do you have any yew trees where the horse is kept? I had a horse with collapsing, tripping episodes that turned into falling over that finally after endless exams turned out to be poisoning from yew trees causing muscle damage.
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Oh goodness Booboos! Hope the poor horse recovered. Mine is on a dirt paddock, with no overhanging trees at all. There's no grass here so he's on hay all year round. So I very much doubt that it would be that. He did have this problem before I bought him though.

Here's the video of him for sale at Ecuries Seconde Chance. At the beginning of the video, when the rider is mounted and he starts to walk off, around step no. 13 he trips and slightly collapses behind. He's had this since, well, before I bought him. He stopped doing it so much for a while, but now it's come back and it's much more pronounced. Plus the bad back, which may or may not be related but seems to be likely related.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWG-hOC7Kig
 
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That's exactly what my horse did at the beginning. Ridden you could really feel him doing it, but from the ground it was almost imperceptible. Gradually things got worse, he started tripping in front, collapsing behind, disunited and eventually falling over. Three years on he is well enough to be retired in the field but the last time we tried to bring him into work he started doing the back leg collapse after 6 months. Yew trees are extremely poisonous and would kill an animal that ingested their bark, my boy had been playing pulling off the bark of the tree so he had a milder, but still very debilitating, reaction.
 
I may have missed something in the thread but am wondering if the vets have run full blood tests on the horse? the problem with a horse being sore in the back is that if there is pain somewhere in the body it often appears to be coming from the sacroilliac or lumbar region as thats where the horse stores the pain tension if that makes sense. the reason I would be looking at bloods is to rule out things like kidney or muscle damage from possible toxins when he was young. then I would be saving money and getting to a good clinic in France or in Spain to have a full workup to see where the problem is coming from and where you can get xrays of the spine and top of the head say from eye level upwards to look for anything non symmetrical. there is something about the downwards transitions in the video you linked to that feels wrong around 1.20 is the first one and then at the end. nothing I can put my finger on and could just be a young horse who is a bit unbalanced. but then I am looking with the knowledge that there is a problem in the horse and may not have noticed if I did not know that. will be interesting to know what the cause is when the vets do find it
 
foxy1 said:
Was the neck xrayed too?
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This. The very first sign the only wobbler I have known showed was that exact knuckle over of the hind foot. Months later, he was doing it much worse, and strained the tendon down the front of the leg , before he finally became ataxic very suddenly one day. Until that day, he passed the standard neurological tests - in fact he used to do a lovely rein back in competition!
 
No he hasn't had either blood tests nor has he had his neck xrayed - yet! At the last visit, the vet determined the problem was coming from his spine, but deemed it to be further back from the neck, towards the saddle area. She came to this conclusion because he went fine on the lunge until she put on a surcingle. After that he was uncoordinated, reluctant to canter, throwing head up in transitions and generally looking to be in discomfort. However, during the exam on the lunge he didn't trip up once! So she hasn't seen that. She said there was nothing wrong with his movement, ie. he's not showing any signs of lameness coming from his limbs. I've just read up on wobbler syndrome and it sounds very very much like that. I would like to get a video of him now on the lunge, to compare with the earlier one which is when he wasn't in much work and had fairly recently come out of training. When I first got him, he was typically very unbalanced and one sided, fairly inflexible. He's not bad now, quite flexible laterally, but still unequally muscled which points to a problem.

The tripping (I like the term 'knuckle over of the hind foot') is much worse than in the video and I wouldn't be at all surprised if he strained himself.


As he's an ex steeplechaser (who never ran incidentally - there might be a clue) I doubt he has been in contact with yew trees. He wouldn't have been turned out. He then spent a short time with Ecuries Seconde Chance. It's a professional outfit with a high turnover of race horses and I doubt they'd be unaware of the dangers. With me, he's never been near a tree! If it were muscle damage, I would expect it to be a 'constant' problem, rather than intermittent and sudden? Whatever it is, there doesn't seem to be much future for him as a riding horse.
 
The vet I spoke to in the UK suggested a course of bute to determine whether it was mechanical or not. Would this would be worthwhile doing, given that the vet thinks there is a problem with his spine? I have a few days worth so could be done. Perhaps it would indicate how much pain he is in, if any. What do you all think?
 
Frenchmade said:
The vet I spoke to in the UK suggested a course of bute to determine whether it was mechanical or not. Would this would be worthwhile doing, given that the vet thinks there is a problem with his spine? I have a few days worth so could be done. Perhaps it would indicate how much pain he is in, if any. What do you all think?
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It's a good suggestion and worth doing. It may not eliminate the back as an issue, my best vet tells me that bute is ineffective in dealing with nerve related back pain
 
ycbm said:
It's a good suggestion and worth doing. It may not eliminate the back as an issue, my best vet tells me that bute is ineffective in dealing with nerve related back pain
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Thanks for that. I'll do it when I get back from the UK, before I start on the meds prescribed by the vet. Im away for 10 days now so there's nothing to be done over Christmas.
 
I really think you would save money in the long term if you took him to a specialist clinic now. They would start with a lameness work up, a neuro exam and go from there. They would be able to nerve block, x-Ray and ultrasound to at least rule out other causes and if nothing else pointed to a problem they would do a muscle biopsy which again would at least rule out other issues.

My horse's muscle problems were intermittent and he also injured himself in other areas, e.g. ligament injury in hind leg because of the tripping and other weird movements. What he has in exceptionally rare but we worked our way through a lot of other possibilities diagnostically to arrive there and I think you need to take this journey and see what comes up.
 
Sorry if I seem a bit vague but I thought when horses knuckled over at the fetlock it was because they had a tendon injury, something like PSD or some congenital deformity of the tendon which makes it contract in such a way that the horse appears to be knuckling over. I think bute would rule out some of the theory's anyway. I agree with Booboos about taking the horse to a specialist clinic. He needs xray on his neck to rule out impingement of the neck vetebrae (wobblers/CVM) and the ultrasound would be able to see if there was a tendon injury on that hind.

You can't start to treat without a diganosis and even if its not what you want to hear at least its peace of mind for you because you will know what you are dealing with.

Good luck

PS There are loads of videos on YOUTUBE showing horses with wobblers. One such one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_O16U9doxpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPFp0tUFwOc this one at trot. Watch the foot placement. The foot placement of the handler leaves a lot to be desired too.
 
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Just a thought, has he been tested for EHV, it can also cause similar symptoms, though probably unlikely. I hope you find a answer soon.
 
Good point, mine had tests to rule EHV out as well. The results of the lameness test and the neuro exam will point in certain directions and you can start ruling possibilities out.
 
Another thing which would be relatively simple and inexpensive to check, would be whether your horse has any mineral deficiencies. As he has been in training, and then only in a dirt field, its highly possible that he is deficient in some way. My homeopathic practice in the uk does a test on a urine sample, and can pin point what your horse might need in his diet. The hardest part can be getting the urine sample! The test is less than a tenner, and if there is a problem, they can make you up a custom made supplement for a lot less than you are paying for a load of chemicals in France. Certainly worth a thought. The discomfort after girthing up points rather to hind gut ulcers, which are hard to detect, so if you DO go the urine sample route, add a faeces sample as well to check for blood. I bought back a homebred horse with a history of napping and vices, almost certainly due to ulcers. He was apparently fine in his back until I pressed my finger tips vertically into his lumbar area, whereupon his stifles gave way, and he collapsed on the floor! With an alkaline diet, and a good chiropractor who helped release tension in the Psoas muscles, he has completely changed, and is now a sound happy horse. Sometimes it pays to think outside the box.
 
Just note - urine testing can only tell what is being fed in excess and excreted. It doesn't show deficiencies and it will give no indication about fat soluable vitamins and minerals. It's basically a scam... The only way to test for a deficiency is by serum analysis.
 
I may be way off the mark here but the stumble the horse does in the vid looks very much like my mare did when she had a slipping stifle. Did the vet look at the stifles?
 
Hi again and thanks for the latest comments and opinions. To give a quick summary of where we are and to answer some of the recent posts - the vet xrayed his stifles and saw him working on the lunge for quite a good workout. She thought his movement (locomotion in French) was very good, especially for a TB. We are within one week of finishing the medication the vet prescribed. Yesterday I thought I saw some improvement. Certainly less head chucking in transitions, more fluid canter, more willing to canter and looking very relaxed and he didn't trip once.

Since what he is taking is anti inflammatory, this leads me to think that pain has been relieved and he is feeling more comfortable. Today he was full of beans on the lunge and chose to have a good strong canter. However, for the whole 5 mins he did this he was disunited, then changed to the wrong lead, then went disunited again. Not once did he canter on the correct left leg. Which tells me he's still not happy to use his left hind, even though he wasn't tripping as much. He tripped once today.

I'll get to the end of the meds (one weeks time I think) and reintroduce the roller and side reins and see what happens. And then take it from there. I do appreciate that it would be a very good idea to get further tests and investigations. But time is not an issue and another couple of weeks won't make much difference. During this last week or so since I got back from the UK he's been enjoying himself doing groundwork over poles. We're up to five poles now, elevated every other end just 6". I've been able to spread the distance to around 5 feet and he's stretching over them beautifully. He doesn't seem to have any difficulty lifting his hind legs and only occasionally clips a pole. Im sure it's doing him the world of good so we'll continue this type of work, plus walking in hand up hills.

Could it all be due to ulcers? He is a stressy sort of horse. Cribs, weaves... windsucks. spooky.. but doesn't do any of these in the paddock and he lives out 24/7. He has adlib hay. Low starch feed with chaff. Turmeric. Keeps condition. Not sure whether ulcers would fit the pattern of dragging right hind and tripping with left, intermittently.

One step at a time. *sighs
 
Something else just occured to me. I said yesterday he didn't trip up once during work. Well, maybe because the day before yesterday he was shod and of course had his feet trimmed up quite a bit. It was 6 weeks since the last shoeing.

In the beginning when I first tried to work out what was causing this, I asked the farrier to do his feet every 4 - 5 weeks to keep his feet short to stop him tripping up. It did work, but rather masks the problem obviously. In November when he was shod the farrier said he couldn't do him in 4 or even 5 weeks as there wasn't enough hoof growth to trim off. So we left it 6 weeks this time.

Surely the difference of 1/4 inch shouldn't make that much difference to his ability to clear the ground. So, a red herring I think?

Another thing!! When he was shod on Tuesday, the farrier managed to hot shoe him all round, front and hind, for the first time ever!! He couldn't believe how chilled he was. Never managed more than a light heat and only in the front. So, to me that says 'no pain, Im happy'.

This is bl**dy detective work!
 
Frenchmade said:
Can I ask did your mare consistently do this, or intermittently? What was the outcome/treatment? Thanks :)
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Hi, it was intermittently - some days she would do it once. Others a few times. She did have ulcers and hind gut issues and once they were sorted, she seemed to stop doing it. She is wth new owners now who havent commented on it so I assume she's barely doing it. She did also have a sore lumbar area which the Vet reckoned was partly down to the jerking of the stumbling and also from holding herself oddly due to tummy aches. She had horrible cow pats of poos as well.

Pm me if you want to know anything else!!
 
carolineb said:
Hi, it was intermittently - some days she would do it once. Others a few times. She did have ulcers and hind gut issues and once they were sorted, she seemed to stop doing it. She is wth new owners now who havent commented on it so I assume she's barely doing it. She did also have a sore lumbar area which the Vet reckoned was partly down to the jerking of the stumbling and also from holding herself oddly due to tummy aches. She had horrible cow pats of poos as well.

Pm me if you want to know anything else!!
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Forgot to add that mare also dragged one or both of her hind feet but one very def worse than the other. Does sound very similar really!!
 
Hi,
I am responding to the video....and have not read all the posts recently regarding meds etc...but just wanted to comment on something if that is ok?

I notice on the vid of him for sale that he steps quite high in all four feet in the walk, trot and canter.

I have recently taken on a companion pony who has exactly the same way of going as your horse... and my farrier visited for the first time today. He has never seen this pony before and although the pony had seen her previous farrier 6 weeks previously....my farrier remarked - with no prompting from me I hasten to add - 'does this pony pick it's feet up quite high? This because the toes are too long'.

Now this does not mean long as in slipper like...but long as in the hooves are too tall so that the pony has the feeling of walking on platforms...and therefore picks the feet up high and 'places' them on the floor...and often overbalancing/tripping.

After trimming the pony - a regular trim - the pony is unshod - the difference in the way of going in the pony was astonishing....she walked out to the field with a normal gait.

I wonder if this may be something worth looking at?

Wishing you all the best .
Bryndu
 
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