Heels growing extremely quickly & stiffness problem

[MagicMelon]

Shetland who has been plagued by laminitis (although I hope to have that under control now, basically she's never to have grass again), has gone unsound again. She is barefoot trimmed and they came out yesterday and were shocked at how quickly her hind heels had grown. She gets trimmed every 4 weeks so cannot understand the sudden dramatic growth. The only thing Ive changed is her feed which I changed from Safe & Sound to Alfa A Oil purely because she has been steadily losing weight (due to no grass) and I felt she needed something a little more. Also, she has low grade athritis in her hinds so I want to feed a high oil diet (she's on NAF Superflex as well). However, our trimmer has now advised to put her onto an emergency detox type diet of unmolassed sugar beet and a little Simple Systems linseed (as well as her usual all round vit & min and joint supps) as well as hay.

Basically, she just looks generally stiff all over. I plan to get her back checked, but its so hard to tell whats wrong with her! It doesnt look like lami and it cant be, she lives on not-amazing hay!

The trimmers have another shetland client who has had exactly the same thing happen (heel growth and stiffness) and the vet has also advised the emergency detox for it also as he thinks its metabolic. They're waiting test results (blood, cushings etc.) so Im sort of waiting to see what that has as it sounds identical. Any ideas though?

 

[seabiscuit]

In my experience when you get excessive pedal bone movement- either through the pedal bones becoming too flat or when the pedal bones rotate as in laminitis, the effect on the back is shocking causing incredible muscle pain everywhere, the neck, the lower back etc/. Their whole body shape changes for the worse as the skeleton adjusts severly trying to take weight off the painfull feet. When the feet are 'normal' again it will then take many months for the body to readjust itself back to normal again. So give it time but tit wont start to happen until the feet are a normal shape again. it is good that the feet are growing fast. and I think that H wave therapy really helps with back and muscular pain so that would help the pony feel more comfortable