Experience with front leg lameness caused by shoulder/back problems?

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sammiero

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Hi. Does anyone have experience with front leg lameness that is caused by problems in back or shoulder or neck og some place else than the lame leg? Horse is lame and vets can't figure out why. She is lame on a circle on hard ground. Sound on a circle on soft ground and sound on a straight line on both hard and soft ground. Lame when ridden on left rein, sound when ridden on right rein. Feels like she sometimes is lame going downhill. Lame on both legs sometimes, but more lame on the left than right. Have now startet thinking shoulder, back or neck. But what can it be?
 
Vets should be looking at horses as a ball of connected tissue with bones placed in the middle to hold them up. Lameness can be caused by pain anywhere in the body (just about) and pretty much EVERYTHING is connected e.g. if a horse is tight in it's hamstrings, that creates tension across the back, right up to the poll. It makes diagnosis notoriously difficult which is why so many vets and owners are now opting for scintigraphy to highlight ''hot spots'' rather than nerve blocking/xraying. The other problem is you will often find red herrings. There can be more than one cause. I'd strongly suggest going for a full body scan before you haemorrhage money on blocks/xrays/scans if the vets are at a loss. Fingers crossed for you.
 
sammiero said:
May I ask what the symptoms were on these horses?
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The horse sat down on the road, very often a cause of SI injury. He was lame in front, quite badly but intermittently and nothing could be found to explain it. After a couple of weeks there was an obvious swelling in a tendon around the SI joint, the horse was box rested and the front leg lameness disappeared.
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lucy_108 said:
Vets should be looking at horses as a ball of connected tissue with bones placed in the middle to hold them up. Lameness can be caused by pain anywhere in the body (just about) and pretty much EVERYTHING is connected e.g. if a horse is tight in it's hamstrings, that creates tension across the back, right up to the poll. It makes diagnosis notoriously difficult which is why so many vets and owners are now opting for scintigraphy to highlight ''hot spots'' rather than nerve blocking/xraying. The other problem is you will often find red herrings. There can be more than one cause. I'd strongly suggest going for a full body scan before you haemorrhage money on blocks/xrays/scans if the vets are at a loss. Fingers crossed for you.
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I have already spent 6000 euros on x-rays, blocks, ultrasound and MRI, fortunately the insurance has covered everything. Vet have suggested scintigraphy, but we do not have one in my country so we need to travel to our neighbor if we decide to get one. Don't know if our insurance will cover that :(
 
sammiero said:
I have already spent 6000 euros on x-rays, blocks, ultrasound and MRI, fortunately the insurance has covered everything. Vet have suggested scintigraphy, but we do not have one in my country so we need to travel to our neighbor if we decide to get one. Don't know if our insurance will cover that :(
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Oh wow, bless you. That is a tough one and really surprising they haven't found anything on any of those. Maybe 6 months field rest might answer the question? It's a cheaper, albeit longer, way to determine if it's something that's going to get progressively worse on it's own, something that's impacted by exercise of something that just needs time.
 
Mine had the exact same symptoms as yours, he hated going down steep hills too. We decided to x-ray the feet just on a whim as we had run out of options! He had chronic side bone and ring bone on the foot he was worse on. Not sure if you’ve looked at the feet, but it was the last place we looked.
 
lucy_108 said:
Vets should be looking at horses as a ball of connected tissue with bones placed in the middle to hold them up. Lameness can be caused by pain anywhere in the body (just about) and pretty much EVERYTHING is connected e.g. if a horse is tight in it's hamstrings, that creates tension across the back, right up to the poll. It makes diagnosis notoriously difficult which is why so many vets and owners are now opting for scintigraphy to highlight ''hot spots'' rather than nerve blocking/xraying. The other problem is you will often find red herrings. There can be more than one cause. I'd strongly suggest going for a full body scan before you haemorrhage money on blocks/xrays/scans if the vets are at a loss. Fingers crossed for you.
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This. They're prey animals, and very good at compensating to maintain some kind of ability to move.
 
Mine had fore limb lameness caused by compensating for issues in his hocks. His did show up on his feet on scans though so slightly different. I think it can come from anywhere but I do feel for you that you're not finding any answers.
 
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