Hind leg lameness

conniegirl

conniegirl

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Last friday I took my lovely young horse up to the vets for a full lameness work up.

He has been Lame behind for some time now and rest has if anything made it worse. I cannot get him to pick up his off hind and he realy struggles with the near hind leg.

At the vets it was determined that he is lame behind on both legs but more so his off hind, he is more comfortable at canter than at trot and strangely more comfortable on the right rein at trot (when off hind is in the inside).
unfortunalty nerve blocks were ineffective.

Vet believes it is high up in the leg, stifle or higher.

He is going in for a bone scan next sunday to see if we can pinpoint anything.
Virtual hugs and support would be much appreciated as well as any advice you can give.

A while ago I put a thread up about the lameness DSLD was mentioned but he doesnt seem to have many of those symptoms. Also a friend mentioned something like EMS ? EPMS? EPSM?
Does anyone have any more info about EPMS (like what the real name is would be a start)? or any info on DSLD that may put my mind at rest about it.
 
Hi :) I'm afraid I can't offerany wisdom or personal experience per se, but if you do a search on EPSM on here and register on the Phoenix barefoot forum you'll find loads hopefully! Some of the phoenix guys are pretty expert in it! Good luck, it's so awful when you don't know what's wrong. Don't know where you are but worth looking up Roger Meacock if you're not averse to stepping outside the orthodox veterinary protocols...
 
When ridden is he particularly stiff to the right or reluctant to go forward? It's a longshot but horses with gastric ulcers are usually lame behind (right hind usually) and very reluctant to pick legs up.
 
My horse with bone spavins reacted just as yours does, he preferred cantering to trotting, and was more comfortable when the worse leg was on the inside. That said there are worse things to get, they have fused and he is sound on them. he used to pick his legs up and then kick them up again so did not refuse to lift them though.
 
Good luck getting to the bottom of things as sometime it takes trial and error when tests are inconclusive

One of my lads was going disunited in canter jumping and over lifting that leg up when picking up the RH leg. Nerve blocks and x-rays didn't show up anything conclusive but there was a very slight improvement over stifle area so this was then at another visit, ultra sound and then medicated. Improved things with physio and lots of raised poles.
 
have you an update about the lameness - out of interest what breed is your horse? I have a youngster with hind end issues and his I believe is all down to hind gut problems - and basically tummy ache, we are going for a thermography session at the weekend to see if anything is amiss that we might have overlooked.
:)
 
EPSM (also known as PSSM) is equine polysaccharide storage myopathy, a genetic muscle disease that affects how horses store and use glycogen. It can cause muscle pain as glycogen builds up in cells and damages the cell. It can certainly cause bilateral hindlimb lameness. A simple blood test can give you an idea of if your horse may be affected (damaged muscles leak marker enzymes into the blood that should not otherwise be there) but you would need a DNA test to confirm type 1 and a biopsy to confirm type 2.

There isn't a treatment other than management, daily consistent exercise and correct diet. I hope you find out what the problem is.
 
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