hip advise needed. please please help!

[krissi]

hi guys, havent been on her for ages but really need some advise.

as some of you might know one of my horses george has hip problems, basically his muscle is not growing around his hip properly, anyway he has been have laser acuppuncter which seems to help and we have been using the niagra vibe thingy on him everyday.

this evening i got a phone call saying he had gone down in the field and they were having problems getting him up. so i went straight down there and as soon as i got there he got up. he was a little stiff to begin with but seemed to loosen up quickly.

anyway some of the people at the yard were sayng that its time i pulled my head out of the sand and did the decent thing and have him pts. but i dont agree he is ridable, the vet reckons the key is to keep him fit. he is full of life when being ridden and i just dont think he is ready. am i being childish?

or can anyone recommend another treatment?

please help i dont know what to do!

 

[flyingfeet]

One of ours had a hip problem and we did try a course of new injections which were supposed to be especially for this. They didn't work in our case but may be worth a try (racking my brains to remember what they were!)

We retired our boy, but as we have a farm there wasn't an issue with him hanging around. He couldn't be ridden as his canter was all screwy and we didn't think it was fair. Can you afford to retire yours?

 

[krissi]

i can afford to retire him but the vet is a little against it as he coming on really well he isnt perfect and still tight behind but he is so raring to go and happy but the vet said if we retire him he will be in more pain! just reading the post about the stem cell stuff and wondering how much it might cost!

 

[beaconhorse]

I presume he is on muscle building feed as well as controlled exercise? Not the same I know but my lad was struggling to build and replace damage hind muscles and I found that Baileys stud balancer at the highest amount really helped where exercise alone did not.

Good luck and listen to your vet NOT these know it alls at the yard. Keep telling everyone your vet is please with him and he is the one pushing you not to give up on him

 

[BethH]

You know what - you know your horse best and if you think he is doing well carry on, he will soon tell you if he isn't, the fact he enjoys being ridden tell you something! I had lots of PTS advice when my horse had kissing spines. He did have an op and is now doing really well but in most cases building a good muscle structure to support the damaged area can sort the problem although it doesn't neccessarily resolve it, so I can see why this would help your horse out. I don't think you are ready to consider the PTS option and it sounds as though your vet agrees and he is the qualified one.

Maybe it would help if you asked a good physio to give you some specific exercise to do with your horse to strengthen the area and you may be able to incorporate some bits and pieces in to your ground work - am sure you have already thought of this but I found long reining to get back end working properly and to encourage correct balance has worked wonders for my ned. The kissing spine gave him problems/damage to his hip/gluts/sacroilliac area and my physio has said how much his muscle has improved on each visit in the 4months he has been worked, the more he works the better he becomes - and I am only concentrating mainly on a good walk! - it is amazing how slow work can help.

Hope this gives you some positive advice - I would feel the same if I were you - Best of luck to you

 

[lizzieuk1]

am assuming that the vet has considered nerve damage in this case, wasting is caused either by underuse, denervation(nerve supply impaired) or diseases that cause muscle breakdown. now i haven't seen any previous posts so apologise if i'm going over old ground, but if there is little growth of muscle even with exercise strikes me here is probably a nerve problem. have you had his pelvis etc xrayed to check for any abnormalities? if the pelvis is unbalanced or there is any impingment then these can be addressed, get a good osteopath or other equivilant and sort the problem that way.