Having horses hocks fused with ethanol

[Birker2020]

I'm taking my boy in to horspital on Friday to have his hocks fused using ethanol. He only needs to be on box rest that day and the following day and then he can go out in the field and I cant start riding him the following day. Hoping that it works well for him as I really am hoping to be able to jump him again.
He is constantly overloading his n/f due to the spavin in his off hind and his near fore is injured due to lateral branch ligament sprain. He is never going to get better whilst he is overloading this leg. He's been off competition since June last year and I'm bringing him back into work and we are at trot, canter and small cross pole stage now.


Fingers xsed, positive vibes and experiences good or bad very welcome.

 

[Mitchyden]

I had my mare done in June last year and she has gone from 4/10ths lame in a straight line to only 1/10th lame in a circle and sound in a straight line. It's not all plain sailing and if I don't keep up with the regular exercise, ie during the freezing weather conditions, she becomes slightly lame again until I start working her properly.

I've also taken her barefoot as I know of a few horses that have developed navicular after the bone spavin and I wanted to eliminate this possibility.

I'm hoping she will go back to competing at endurance but I'm worried about the initial vetting as she does need quite a bit of warming up before she's 100%.

 

[Birker2020]

I had my mare done in June last year and she has gone from 4/10ths lame in a straight line to only 1/10th lame in a circle and sound in a straight line.

Sounds like its worked for your mare then Mitchyden that's positive.

I'm just keeping my fingers and toes crossed that he is not one of the 20-30% of horses that can't have the fusion done if the results of the contrast dye show that the dye is tracking up the joint. Obviously if this is the case and the ethanol was given under these circumstances the top two bones (I believe) in the hock would fuse and the horse would never walk normally again. It would just be my bad luck my horse is not a candidate for the procedure! Of course there is always steroid injection into the joint but its not going to last too long. I'm not really sure how long fusing works for. Apparently the nerves are destroyed immediately the alcohol is injected but I always thought nerves grew back eventually. With the procedure for both hocks costing near on £400 and the actual injection only costing a fiver I would hope it would last a few years at least. I've probably only got another two years competition life out of him so if it can last that long I will be happy. Apparently the actual fusing of the joint can take up to 18 months!

I know in the case of arthritic horses 20 mins every night is better than an hour of hard work once a week as my vets told me that which is just as well as I can't do much canter work with my boy as my back is quite bad and he is so bouncy in canter as he has quite a big movement behind.

At the end of the day my horse's well being comes first and I hope by doing this it gives him the best chance of recovery even if it means its just flat work from now on. I've had a brilliant 7 years with him, I love him to bits and he owes me nothing.

My vets are amazing, lets hope they can pull the rabbit from the hat on this one

 

[Achinghips]

Had mine done, marginal improvement. Botched schooling when young and so unbalanced anyway. Terrified she'd pull a suspensory given her unbalanced gait made worse by self injurous compensatory strategies, additional developing bone spurs. Sadly retired her on vet advice, aged 13 and a half.

She has a life of Riley in a field now muching as happy as the day is long with an occasional booted hack

 

[madgeymoo]

i had a mare have these last thursday we had to do 3 days box rest with 5 minutes walking and now we are at 15 minutes walking and paddock turn out

she has had 3 bouts of steriod injections and this was our next option, when talking to the vets at leahurst they stated that unlike steriod injections she would not be allowed another within a 3 month period, from what i have discussed with the vets these injections take longer to take effect than the steriod butshould hopefully last alot longer

i to am hoping she will go back competing although it will be a long road as she has had many other problems.

fingers crossed the injetions work for you and sending lots of positive vibes x

 

[Birker2020]

Thank you for you comments, your posts are interesting. Achinghips sorry it did not work for your mare, what a shame but at least she has a nice life by the sounds of it.

Mitchyden if your horse is still lame on a circle then could it possibly be due to compensatory issues and not the hocks themselves? As far as I am aware all nerves to the hock joints concerned are destroyed. It might be that the horse is lame 'mechanically' lame - I think this is what 'bridle lameness' is, when the horses gait alters within the stride pattern. Not sure on that, I will have to ask my physio friend on that point. Sounds like its been effective though.

Madgeymoo fingers crossed for your mare that it does the trick and last a long, long time. Thanks for your wishes guys. x

 

[Mitchyden]

It does destroy the nerve endings which means the horse does go sound virtually straight away but unfortunately they do grow back. Apparently 6 - 8 months is the time when things can go wrong again and they did for me about 6 months after the initial treatment.

As I said before, it might have coincided with me not being able to work her properly but I put her on Vetrofen which is amazing stuff - she became sound in a couple of days! It's very expensive and works out about £50 per month and it might be that she doesn't need it now she's working again but I'm going to leave her on it until the spring when it's warmer and she's out 24/7.

Sorry to hear about your horse Achinghips as we had ours done at the same time and I was wondering how you were getting on.

 

[Birker2020]

UPDATE - had the hocks fused. The vet didn't think the nerves would grow back again. He also scanned the suspensory ligament and its healing nicely though he did question whether I would be able to jump him again, just said I would have to wait and see.

So pleased that he has had the chance of fusion, so fingers crossed I am trying to look at this very positively.