Forelimb lameness and sacroilliac/ hind suspensory relationship ?

[Spangles]

Has anyone had any experience of their horse having high suspensory (PSD) and sacroilliac strain/ pain and have been suspicious of it being secondary to mild forelimb lameness ?

Is their a relationship at all in anyone's opinion ? And if so, what did you discover ?

 

[SEL]

I'm not exactly sure what came first tbh but left hind suspensory right by the hock, SI pain and then when we injected she showed up lame right fore. Suspected soft tissue damage with navicular changes on x ray but insurance wouldn't pay for mri and i decided to stop spending money. There was a note on file saying she looked 1/10 lame on that right fore from a few years before but she'd had an abscess so no one worried - now I wonder if that was an early sign.

 

[Nudibranch]

I had a horse with confirmed hock and probable SI arthritis who would regularly show mild ie 1 or 2/10 lameness in front. However it was chicken and egg and we never came to a definite conclusion as to which caused which. I do know that as a foal his hooves were allowed to grow too long and I often wonder whether that set everything up for the future (as well as being a very big horse).

 

[Melody Grey]

Yes, my horse presented exactly as you describe. MRI showed a ligament strain (sorry don’t remember more specifically) in the right hoof with bi-lateral hind psd (worse in the left which had been compensating fir the right). Also de-rotation all round. All sound now and back barefoot after corrective showing for almost a year.
As said above, chicken and egg though with where it all started- vets don’t know either.

 

[oldie48]

I think it's generally the other way round as we pick up fore limb lameness more easily than hind limb particularly if it's bilateral and horses are pretty good at compensating which leads to problems in the front. No expert though but was told this by a vet.

 

[sbloom]

I think it's more helpful to see it as an overall postural deficit, and that usually actually comes from asymmetry, a truly straight horse usually moves very efficiently as is less likely to become unsound. I'm not an expert but I know one I can probably ask at some point in the future, but I'd say it's straightness - compromised movement - hocks/SI etc - forelimbs. Science in Motion is a bit controversial but he has a big programme of restoring posture and straightness to "cure" navicular. I'm not sure he's that far off the mark.

The big question is how to unpick it and get the horse as sound as possible and it's not about knowing what came first, it's about the most productive/least harmful order in which to fix things, and the expert I mention, The Osteopathic Vet, is pretty good at that, vets with less holistic outlooks can end up fixing symptoms and never unpeeling the onion.

 

[lynz88]

I'm not exactly sure what came first tbh but left hind suspensory right by the hock, SI pain and then when we injected she showed up lame right fore. Suspected soft tissue damage with navicular changes on x ray but insurance wouldn't pay for mri and i decided to stop spending money. There was a note on file saying she looked 1/10 lame on that right fore from a few years before but she'd had an abscess so no one worried - now I wonder if that was an early sign.

My god this sounds familiar! The difference for mine was LH hock/suspensory is worse than RH hock/suspensory despite RH being severely broken back (LH also broken back but not nearly as bad as RH) along with LF (also lame/short and very broken back). RF is near "perfect". What a mouthful....