Full Body Scan

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kellybrown11

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Hello,

My 6 year old hasnt been sound for two weeks and today the vet has recommended him going to Newmarket for a full body scan.

Has anyone had one before? How successful will that be in identifying the lameness?

Thanks
 
Hi,

No he hasnt! He said none of his legs look sound. First off looks off behind and then he doesnt want to move forward and the front end looks wrong.

Doesnt sound very good does it? Have two weeks to wait.

Its only happened in the last two weeks and is getting progressively worse. He just feels awful, no heat or swelling anywhere.
 
My horse went to Newmarket for a hind end scan. The scan will show up any hot spots and assist with diagnosing what is wrong.

In my horse's case his root injury didn't show up as it was an old injury and there was only one very minor hot spot on a hock presumably from the way he was moving due to the root SI injury.

Your horse goes in and is injected the following day with radioactive dye and then scanned. You have to leave the horse there for a further 2 or 3 days until he is no longer radio active and of course there may be some follow up treatment before he can go home.
Good luck.
 
My horse Bertie was referred to Newmarket for a full body scan, after my local vets had come up with about 5 different things that they thought were problems (but no actual answers!). i decided not to take him, as with the £2300+ price tag, if they did find the problem (they may not!) I wouldnt of had much £ in vets fee's to fix the problem.

I did however get a second opinion from a lameness specialist and she decided that it was actually Arthritis, and there was no way he needed a full body scan.

Think carefully about what your insurance will and wont cover. You will need to inform your insurance company, and they will either agree or not to fund it. My vets fee's are only up to £3000 so i had to be careful.

Ask your vets exactly why your horse has been referred for the scan. Have they sone xrays and scanned ligaments etc?

A full body scan is rather a large and dramatic thing, for something that could be actually something very simple!
 
One of mine had a full scan a few months ago, as the vets couldnt diagnose his lameness with the usual work up.
He went in on the Thursday, injected and scanned on the Friday.
Scan showed hot spots in hocks, fetlocks etc, which they said was to be expected, but also in his sacro iliac region, so on the Monday he had cortisone injections before he came home.

Make sure you get the insurance company to agree up front that they are prepared to pay for the scan, any treatment, physio etc - it really does mount up! :eek:

I hope you can find the source of the lameness and get it sorted.

Good Luck. :)
 
I would see if you could get referred to the Royal vet college. They have an inertial sensor system which is very acurate at diagnosing which leg(s) are lame or not! I believe it is about 1 - 200 pounds so a lot cheaper. Worth having a chat with your vet about?
 
Have had a couple of horses scanned who had difficult to diagnose lamenesses (both turned out to to involve multiple legs and various conditions).

It was useful for diagnosis and prognosis, expensive (I think about £1,000 for the scan and then there were other test costs, livery etc) and in the end we did not have any appropriate treatment/surgery options so pts or retire were our only real options.

However, a key difference for us was that neither horse had been doing any full work, and it was only as they took on more work that problems became very obvious. Whereas with your boy, you say he was sound two weeks ago, so you know that he WAS normal, if I'm reading you right?

So to get the most from any investigation, I'd be checking back on exactly what was happening with him two weeks ago. When was he last normal. When did he become lame. How much time was there in between those two observations (eg days when other people checked him instead of you, etc). Anything else that happened during those times which might point to anything in particular - etc was he trimmed/shod during that time? Any other management changes? Did he do more work than normal..... all that kind of thing, just in case it suggests something which might be easier/cheaper to check out as the first port of call?

But otherwise, for me, the scans WERE worthwhile. They were just bloomin expensive.

Sarah
 
One of mine was recently diagnosed with multi limb lameness and went into our vets for 3 days and had a full body scan followed by x rays of neck, back and hocks and then injections into various points.

Must admit didn't ask much, just let them do it as the horse obviously wasn't right but nothing easily identifiable.

Think the scan was around £1000 so with injections and veterinary nursing care and stay in vets and another period for an unrelated matter has all come to around £3,500.

Horse is now back in work doing 45 minutes schooling each and every day which the vet wants the horse to do (otherwise horse would probably be doing much less).
 
My mare went for a full scan. She had unusual lameness and ataxia in three legs. It didn't really show up anything but did eliminate certain things. It cost about £1300 altogether which you could soon spend looking for a problem (e.g lameness exams, nerve blocks, x-rays)
 
My mare had a scan at Newbury the other week. She wasn't obviously lame but was refusing to work so the scan identified where the vets needed to investigate. The total bill for scan, nerve blocks and 3 nights stay was £1300.
The scan identified hock spavins and issues with pedal bones which were followed up with x rays the following week.
 
My boy has just returned from Newmarket afte having a full body scan, it certainly gave me answers as to why he wasn't moving correctly.
They were not the answers I wanted to hear, but at least I know what the problem was.

He is too come home and be a lawnmower.
 
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