Experience of Tildren?

Twiglet

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Has anyone used Tildren for navicular? Friend's eventer has shown navicular signs for a couple of years - the past year of remedial shoeing has got him sound and competing but with this summer's hard ground he's now struggling again and was lame on the turn with the last lameness work up.
Farrier's new solution seems to be to throw everything in his van at him (talking wedges, pads, heartbars - I'm sure he's grown about 2 inches) but isn't convinced as to it being a long term solution.
A contact has suggested Tildren as a next step. Horse in question is 12 year old TB type, doesn't have any other issues/isn't prone to colic.
 

Holidays_are_coming

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I had a good chat with a vet at rossdales and my own vet and the concensus was it was too unpredictable and had quickly gone out of fashion.

The one thing that seems to work is going barefoot from what I have read on here im not a barefoot evangelist but I took my mare barefoot with the help of hoof boots and a change in diet and it wasn't too traumatic. However most farriers tend to hate the idea
 

Goldenstar

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Have not used it for navicular but for other bony issues and TBH I am not convinced costs a fortune makes some horse drink excessively after it and not sure it justifys the cost however a friend used it on her stallion having tried loads of other things he was transformed.
 

DollyPentreath

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Not navicular but tried Tildren with a sacro issue. Unfortunately the mare colicked quickly (recovered after a worrying few hours of profuse sweating) and we saw no improvement with regards to the sacro pain. Hopefully someone else might have something positive to add!
 

Chloe_GHE

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my old boy had navicular changes in just the one front foot. vet advised Tildren drip and iirc an injection of HA directly into the hoof joint. He was 12yrs tb. no history of colic.

Had the treatment, turned him away for a month, came back 100% sound.

Sadly messing about in the field a week into coming back into work he pulled a shoe and the nail punctured the tendon sheath and tore a hole in the tendon and he had to be PTS, so no first hand knowledge of how he would have progressed from there but can 100% say he was sound and happy just 3 weeks after the Tildren.

He didn't show any signs of excess drinking or colic but he was a very robust little horse who never had any gastric issues the whole 6 years I had him
 

blackhor2e

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The horse in my signature developed navicular last year, we thought long and hard about the right thing to do and decided on going barefoot.
It took quite a while for her to adjust and she is occasionally 'pottery' but I think the barefoot solution has been the right decision for us (I am not really a barefoot evangelist either) :)
 

xRobyn

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Not for navicular, but two treatments of tildren for SI issues and *touches wood* horse has since been sound for 15 months.
 

applecart14

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I've not used it for navicular but have for spavin and was quite effective, the horse in question had three lots of tildren over a twelve month period.

He was slightly depressed and a little colicky following the fusion. His bed was also very, very wet for 24 hours afterwards.
 

TarrSteps

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If you read the actual drug information the predicted 'success rate' with return to function being the standard, is about 60%. So it's not going to work for every horse and they don't promise it will.

The very nature of any progressive condition is that there is not going to be a 'long term solution' but some horses do seem to have their useful lives extended by judicious use of medication including Tildren.

It's worth reading up on it as it's definitely a risk vs reward situation and an individual decision.
 

superpony

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It was an option for my TB with navicular but since he has is abit prone to colic we decided not to take the risk. Instead we took his shoes off and left him in the field for the year.. hes now sound. :)
 

WellyBaggins

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I tried it for navicular with no success, leahurst vet who later did his MRI said it is not much use for Navicular and it wasn't in my case but mine is soft tissue more than bone.
 

ElleJS

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Yes & no side effects & horse came 100% sound. (There was no soft tissue injury) every horse will be different I guess! The client who owned this horse had it paid by insurance.
 

Perfect-Piaffe

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Another one that didn't use it for navicular but one of mine had it a few months ago and no improvement :( horse unridble. I had one of my youngsters have it years ago and it didn't work either- was hoping it would the second for this boy but no luck. Sorry :(
 

Marydoll

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I Used it on the same horse twice for bone spavin, it worked initially but only for a short spell 3-4 months so we repeated it, with no further good effect so imo for my horse it never worked
 

One More

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I tried it on my 7yr old with navicular, very very slight improvement, but quickly regressed so pretty much no effect for me either - have known it to work very well on another horse though
 

TarrSteps

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For the horses that have improved then regressed, it HAS worked, hasn't it? There is no promise that it will 'cure' anything and if the horse has a degenerative condition it will continue to degenerate, at least when the medication wears off. In some cases the condition is so slowed by other factors it may seem like a cure and, of course, there are conditions that are not degenerative. But otherwise 'management' is exactly that - on ongoing and detailed approach to slowing the process and mitigating the effects as much as possible. To pretend otherwise is to invite guaranteed disappointment, surely?
 

MadisonBelle

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My horse did the Tildren trial so I was lucky as they paid me ;)

Anyways my mare already had Navicular for 5 years but was sound with raised heels, and the Tildren was for spavins in her hocks. 1st treatment nothing but this could well have been the placebo as not even vet was told, 2nd treatment left me with a lovely sound mare again! She stayed sound until I lost her a few years later of a completely seperate issue.

I count myself very lucky indeed with that mare as she was so tough when she bounced back from the initial devastatingly navicular prognosis and then came good again with the Tildren for her hocks.........

I wasn't aware at the time of any colic issues and my mare certainly didn't colic.

Good luck with whatever you decide...... It doesn't have to be the end of the world for some lucky ones...xx
 

JoJo_

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My horse had his first tildren treatment at the end of July for bone spavin. So far he is quite sound. Not sure if it is the tildren working or not. He was doing well until July and I am quite sure the hard ground made him get worse. Have been bubble wrapping him more recently as we have BRC Nationals in a week.
 

applecart14

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The very nature of any progressive condition is that there is not going to be a 'long term solution' but some horses do seem to have their useful lives extended by judicious use of medication including Tildren.

Agree with this, I have had an additional extra five years with my horse following tildren and then fusion with ethanol for spavin. Right now he is on walk only for a month, followed by a second month of bringing back into full work in respect of an ongoing issue with his suspensory ligament again! But I anticipate I should be able to get another twelve to twenty four months of full use out of him before we have to start thinking about slowing down and hacking or dressage and hacking only.

But whilst he is jumping and competing and loving it, and his ears are pricked and his full of the joys of spring then I will continue to compete. When he starts running out at fences, or not wanting to do a dressage test I will kwow the time has come to slow down.
 

sarahebby

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have you tried looking into gallium nitrate. has been successfully treating horses in america for navicular disease for a while now but hasn't taken off over here yet. may be worth reading into... :)
 

ester

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I suppose for a navicular diagnosis it depends a little exactly what that diagnosis was based on and how much soft tissue involvement there is. I'd take shoes off.
 

j1ffy

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I was told by my vet that Tildren only has around a 10% success rate for navicular.

There is growing anecdotal evidence that navicular is not a degenerative condition (in response to Tarrsteps comments, though TS I'm sure you're aware of this having worked with one of the horses in the below posts! :D) and that even bone changes can be improved.

http://rockleyfarm.blogspot.hk/2013/08/degenerative-disease-0-rehab-5.html
And
http://rockleyfarm.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/surprise-surprisenot-really.html
 

TarrSteps

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I was told by my vet that Tildren only has around a 10% success rate for navicular.

There is growing anecdotal evidence that navicular is not a degenerative condition (in response to Tarrsteps comments, though TS I'm sure you're aware of this having worked with one of the horses in the below posts! :D) and that even bone changes can be improved.

http://rockleyfarm.blogspot.hk/2013/08/degenerative-disease-0-rehab-5.html
And
http://rockleyfarm.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/surprise-surprisenot-really.html

Well, technically, it's my understanding that "navicular" isn't "a" condition at all, it's a syndrome which can involve different conditions that lead to, effectively, the same result. So surely the prognosis depends a lot on what, exactly, is going on. I have a great deal of respect for the work Rockley is doing but even they do not claim a 100% success rate.

My point was only that it is not always possible to "cure" a condition, regardless of the treatment plan, because even in cases where damage can be slowed or even reversed, some conditions will continue to proceed. This is not a disaster, it's life. Many horses have long useful working lives with well managed degenerative conditions. Saying that Tildern (or barefoot or whatever) does not work because it does not "cure" the condition is unfair and shows a wilful lack of misunderstanding about how the body works.

Tildren has a very specific effect. If your horse has a condition that will respond to that effect then you might have success. If it does not, you are taking the risks for no chance of reward. Clearly some horses with "navicular" have had success so presumably the had conditions that responded (although possibly not even the ones originally thought. . . .) but this doesn't mean anything for the next horse. Conditions like spavins are easier to group as radiographic evidence can be closely linked to symptoms and improvement is relatively easy to measure. Even then, a horse may have spavins and another condition, so, even if Tildren does make a difference to the bony changes, that doesn't necessarily guaranteed soundness.

A multi pronged approach is always the way to go. Rockley isn't just about taking the shoes off, it's about a whole system of managing the horse for long term support and soundness. Oddly, in that context, people seem to accept that, but with vets people want a "magic bullet" which will make everything okay with no further input or changes.
 

TarrSteps

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Just to add, I agree very much with the second article, partly because the first horse I had was diagnosed with navicular and given a poor long term prognosis. He went on to event (not with me, I had to sell him soon after due to circumstances beyond my control) for years, and then retired sound to be a hack, a job he was still doing at 27. So, not so poor. :) Clearly he did NOT have a degenerative condition, or at least no more than most if the rest of us.

I also had a horse with a spavin diagnosed at 5 who, without any injections or other veterinary intervention, stayed working sound into his 20s. It happens.

(Interestingly, although both these horses were shod to compete, they lived in a culture that routinely takes shoes off for part of the year. They were also both, by the standards of many people on here, ridden A LOT. Tbf, though, they were also tough horses with good conformation etc so had other advantages.)

I don't think any condition HAS to be the kiss of death, whether degenerative or not. But I also know that not everything in life is fixable and that sometimes WANTING a particular outcome is not enough. All you can do is try and then wait and see.
 

Copperpot

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Mine had Tildren and jocks injected last year in September. I didn't notice any improvement. Took shoes off and chucked him in field for a year and he's just had both re done again. He is sound now but whether its the Tildren, injections or just having a year being fat and hairy I don't know. He's also been on a joint supplant for past year too.
 
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