Girthing Pain

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joingall

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Has anyone ever heard of girth pain syndrome? We have 5 year mare who we bought as she was going to be out down. She was backed by the person that bred her and then slowly but surely she started to not want to be saddled and pulled faces, tried to bite and eventually started going into a massive bucking sessoion even if the girth was put on one hole. Her owner was going to have her put down which is when we bought her. She is lovely and we have spent 6 months doing ground work and letting her settle. We can now touch her girth area even though her ears go back the teeth don't appear anymore! I can sit on her bare back no problem and put a saddle on her but the moment that girth is on she blows out and she goes mad bucking like a rodeo horse. You can tell she is frightened and not doing out of nastiness. I have been told that she should never be ridden but just wondered if anyone else had any experience of this? Her breeder has spent thousands on medical tests and she is perfectly healthy. I just don't know what has happened in the past.
 
joingall said:
Has anyone ever heard of girth pain syndrome? We have 5 year mare who we bought as she was going to be out down. She was backed by the person that bred her and then slowly but surely she started to not want to be saddled and pulled faces, tried to bite and eventually started going into a massive bucking sessoion even if the girth was put on one hole. Her owner was going to have her put down which is when we bought her. She is lovely and we have spent 6 months doing ground work and letting her settle. We can now touch her girth area even though her ears go back the teeth don't appear anymore! I can sit on her bare back no problem and put a saddle on her but the moment that girth is on she blows out and she goes mad bucking like a rodeo horse. You can tell she is frightened and not doing out of nastiness. I have been told that she should never be ridden but just wondered if anyone else had any experience of this? Her breeder has spent thousands on medical tests and she is perfectly healthy. I just don't know what has happened in the past.
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Girthiness can be a sign of kissing spine so I would get her back xrayed to make sure this is not why she is sore. There is a muscle going from the back to the girth area (my physio friend will be shouting at me now as she's told me the name of it a 100 times already as my horse suffers from this girthness issue at times). :eek:
 
Poor thing has had everything scoped and there is nothing physically wrong with her. She can only just bear to have her rug done up but she will take an elasticated surcingle. Funny. I'm starting to think that maybe she has had a great deal of pain in the past and now its a head thing that she needs to get over. Wondering wether or not an osteo might give us some more idea.
 
agree with all of the above but thought i would mention also that my TB filly ex racehorse so girthed up plenty of times was dreadful to girth up just before coming in to season and whilst in season, ears back, teeth out to bite, walked as if she had been overgirthed and then when her season had finished she was a darling to girth up - stuck her on to moody mare.
 
Thats interesting as she came into season the next day after we tried to girth her. Will possibly try again when not in season and see how we go. thanks
 
A little off the wall maybe, bearing in mind she has had lots of medical tests. Many years ago a friend of mine had a horse that became very 'girthy'. After a considerable period of time, she was found to have a collection of pus in her abdomen caused by a little piece of wood that had pentrated her gut after chewing it, and it just sat and festered. She never had a temp or anything like that to indicate she had an infection.

The infection never spread any further, but after surgery to remove this one small area, she became normal again.

I can't remember how they discovered it, but she was at Cambridge Vet School for a while, as we stabled about 4 miles from it at the time.
 
Thanks. I know that she's been scoped for ulcers already. I just don't wether its just painful memories or physical pain its hard to read because its such a dramatic reaction.
 
Being girthy is often a sign of a neck/withers being out of alignment. A good chiro should be able to help correct the problem - it will however take time for the horse to get over the expectation of pain on girthing so be patient.
 
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