How much for kissing spines type xrays?

catembi

catembi

Well-Known Member
Joined
12 March 2005
Messages
13,254
Location
N Beds
Visit site
Idly thinking whether this might be my boy's problem as his tests for everything else under the sun have been extremely normal (he is lethargic & has been for 2 1/2 years with odd improvements & then relapses - vets can't find anything wrong). And I think I have an exclusion for lethargy, so if I did this, I'd probably be paying for it.

Or is thermal imaging a useful thing to try first, as that's miles cheaper?

Sometimes I wonder whether I've got that Munchausens by proxy as every test comes back normal, but he's just soooooooo slow. Weight normal, repeated zero worm counts, repeated normal full bloodwork, appetite fine, seems cheerful enough, perfectly sound - just won't go out of walk unless he has to.

T x
 
catembi said:
Idly thinking whether this might be my boy's problem as his tests for everything else under the sun have been extremely normal (he is lethargic & has been for 2 1/2 years with odd improvements & then relapses - vets can't find anything wrong). And I think I have an exclusion for lethargy, so if I did this, I'd probably be paying for it.

Or is thermal imaging a useful thing to try first, as that's miles cheaper?

Sometimes I wonder whether I've got that Munchausens by proxy as every test comes back normal, but he's just soooooooo slow. Weight normal, repeated zero worm counts, repeated normal full bloodwork, appetite fine, seems cheerful enough, perfectly sound - just won't go out of walk unless he has to.

T x
Click to expand...

I know the feeling, I have been much the same with mine for the past 2 years but unlike you we do keep finding another problem it is just working out where to look next that can prove difficult.

Have you tried a proper bute trial, that helped with mine as at least we knew it was not imaginary, I was going to get him thermal imaged but a change of vet found where the problem was, or that one at least, unless you have reason to suspect KS I think get TI done would really be more help as it may find something that you have not considered, for a horse really reluctant to move forward I would be more inclined towards its feet giving very low grade pain, a minor inbalance can be enough to make them feel they cannot move but if bilateral will not show as lameness.

I would bute for a week and see if it makes any difference, it may not help with some issues, KS may not respond but it is a sensible starting point, then give a week off it before doing TI, if anything shows then go for a workup, xrays etc.
 
Tempted to think possible foot imbalance to. Took shoes off mine and results were shocking, different height heel from side to side and underrun heels by 3/4 inch. Horse was paddling from the hip not pushing from the hock. Oh and I have done the ks thing. Mine was happy to go forward just couldn't do it properly! If you video your horse in walk and slow it down you'll be able to see if it is toe landing which is bad - should be flat landing when shod at least. Also check if there is any heel pain, poor foot balance can cause this too and then you really wouldn't want to go out of walk.

Good luck
 
has your horse been on fields where sheep and or cattle graze ? there are these worms (don;t know the english word for them ) but they don't show up in regular blood or muck samples,except with bad infections the liver enzymes will be increased. They cause extreme fatigue and horses can eventually die if nothing is done.
 
catembi said:
Idly thinking whether this might be my boy's problem as his tests for everything else under the sun have been extremely normal (he is lethargic & has been for 2 1/2 years with odd improvements & then relapses - vets can't find anything wrong). And I think I have an exclusion for lethargy, so if I did this, I'd probably be paying for it.

Or is thermal imaging a useful thing to try first, as that's miles cheaper?

Sometimes I wonder whether I've got that Munchausens by proxy as every test comes back normal, but he's just soooooooo slow. Weight normal, repeated zero worm counts, repeated normal full bloodwork, appetite fine, seems cheerful enough, perfectly sound - just won't go out of walk unless he has to.

T x
Click to expand...

With those symptoms I'd be looking at dsld, EPSM and cushings before I'd be looking at kissing spines, but my kissing spines x rays cost 200, done at a small hospital, if that's any help.
 
cptrayes said:
With those symptoms I'd be looking at dsld, EPSM and cushings before I'd be looking at kissing spines, but my kissing spines x rays cost 200, done at a small hospital, if that's any help.
Click to expand...

My KS x-rays were a touch more at £300, done at a local equine specialist. I'd also consider getting the feet and hocks x-rayed if you havent already.

The only comment I'd make is that I've had 2 x-rayed for KS (one with close but not touching DSP and subsequently injected, and one whose spine was fine but had SI issues) and both of them were reacting violently to being ridden/worked. I'd agree with cptrayes re considering other things for the lethargy as I'm not aware that's usually a symptom (happy to be told otherwise though!).

Good luck with finding out what's wrong - you have my sympathy as I know how depressing and frustrating it is!
 
I had Stanley's spine x rayed last year before he was diagnosed with ulcers... Insurance paid but I think it was around £300.
 
leggs said:
has your horse been on fields where sheep and or cattle graze ? there are these worms (don;t know the english word for them ) but they don't show up in regular blood or muck samples,except with bad infections the liver enzymes will be increased. They cause extreme fatigue and horses can eventually die if nothing is done.
Click to expand...

I think you are speaking of liver fluke. One of the top Highland Pony Breeders in Scotland always wormed for this. He said wet ground can cause infection with this overlooked parasite.
 
Not been grazed with cattle & sheep. He used to be a racehorse, so was in all the time. Then he 'retired' & was owned by someone for only a few months as a temp replacement (their horse unexpectedly went sound) & he's been with me ever since. 4 1/2 years. Mine live at home, so it's just my two. My other horse has EPSM, so I know what that's like. I sent some of Trev's mane off anyway (lacking any better ideas) for the EPSM test and it came back -ve. I know that there are 2 types, but his lethargy is of a different type to the EPSM horse's. Adrian starts off slow & cross and will loosen up whereas Trev starts slow...and finishes slow!

Trev isn't at all bad to tack up & mount - in fact, that's prob what he's best at - and the vets have previously felt along his back to see if it was tender & it wasn't. He is even on both reins & when he was being investigated for ulcers, had a soundness workup including lungeing in a tight circle on concrete & he was 100%. Honestly, he was spectacularly sound & even.

There really is *something* wrong with him, but I just can't find out what.

He was scoped for ulcers a year ago - grade 2 pyloric - treated with the usual GG + other stuff - made absolutely no difference at all, vets lost interest in him as after all he's just a 10 a penny ex-racer, so I tried him on ranitidine from the chemist & the ulcer behaviour (biting, kicking, looking miserable; being *desperate* for food) stopped, then I weaned him off it & the ulcer behaviour hasn't come back. He will simply NOT move! Oddly, he still wants to jump, never stops & will wake up a bit after a jump or a canter, and the more I jump him, the more he likes it. I have a couple of jumps up in the school & we usually pop over three times & he really gets into it. not in a running off, pain related way - in an enjoying it way. Then when we stop, it's back to dawdling in walk.

He is the same out hacking.

Honestly, I despair, I really do. I've spent thousands on trying to find out what's wrong, & the vets just think that I'm batty. I insisted on riding him in front of one of them the last time they came out as I wanted to 'prove' that it's not all in my head! They did a neuro invetsigation to check for wobblers, etc - you guessed it - normal!

Sorry, rambling, but what do you do...??!

Thank you for the ideas & sympathy!

T x
 
Well I would not want to guess what your problem is but I can tell you my experience of KS.
I bought a lovely 16.2 full ID boy back in May 2011 who was just backed and rising 4. I didn’t do much with him the first few years, just little bits of schooling, mainly hacking and the occasional bits of jumping as he was quite immature and needed a few years maturing. He has always been a lovely boy and never reared, bucked, showed any signs of being cold backed etc. But in April this year he started not wanting to trot uphill out hacking. He would crab and want to go into canter rather than trot straight. In the school he was never the most forward going and I always felt I was doing more work than him, but when we noticed that there was something not quite right he really stopped going forward and I had to constantly bully him along all the time just to keep him moving. He had previously worked well enough even winning a BD regional qualifier class with 74% as a 5 year old but he had never been the most forward ride which I just put down to his breed and temperament.
In April this year when he started feeling not right out hacking he also lost his overtrack, he didn’t show any lameness just a loss of motion / movement. Vet was called and we couldn’t really find anything wrong so did a bute trial which didn’t really make any difference. Luckily my vet immediately said referral to Newmarket – he said he could do countless tests, x-rays, scans etc. to try and find the cause (we were thinking stifle, suspensories, hock… something hind limb or maybe SI) but that it would be quicker and probably cheaper in the long run to just have full body scintigraphy done. So we did this and it came back with 4 areas of kissing spine along with ligament and muscle damage. My poor boy had been coping with all this and was never nasty or showed any real signs of pain he just kept trying to do what I wanted. I need to say at this point that he is on a professional yard and was regularly seen by a very well respected Physio and a chiro and although he needed a few minor tweaks here and there over the years neither of them picked up on any major pain responses from him – he was tight in places occasionally but he would never have been considered a KS horse.
In hindsight I think moving him to a new yard last year which was in a hilly area exacerbated the KS problem (his paddock and all his hacking work was on hills) and I think that this resulting in the additional ligament and muscle damage.
Anyway post surgery he is not back in work just yet (January!!!) but just looking at him in the paddock he now has his overtrack back, he is wider in his stance behind and he walks out a lot quicker than he ever used to.
So after all this rambling I am just trying to say that not all KS horses show the same symptoms.
Costs: Scintigraphy Full body £1200 +vat, Full back x-rays £410 +vat (the vet said the lights dimmed trying to get clear films of his back…. well he is a big boy!!) and Ultrasound scans of back £173 +vat.
Lastly, someone else posted re muscle biopsy and it was discussed at his assessment at Newmarket that this would have been the next course of action based on his symptoms had the scintigraphy not shown up anything.
Good luck and I hope you find some answers.
 
Just as an aside mine went through a spell of being very lethargic, could be in his diet - some sort of imbalance, mine turned out not to be able to tolerate a feed change to a feed with more lucerne in it which should have been better quality than his old one. I seem to be hearing a few stories of lethargy and how odd the balance in the grass has been this year too. The weird thing is that as a punt, I put him on a course of Global Herbs Restore tonic as getting desperate for him to start sparkling again and he has really perked up, most odd. He has had a number of issues over the last 18mths and I think he has been feeling quite low with life, he almost became withdrawn and quite switched off, which after 11 years of trying to get him to calm down & slow down was quite unnerving! I can't guarantee that it is only the "Restore" tonic but he tanked me round the farm a couple of days ago and was so oblivious to his riders instructions that I actually came home thrilled. It's about £20, might be worth a shot, it seems to have detoxed my horse & put him back on track!
 
My experience of kissing spines horses is that they really don't want to jump.

Have you looked at the symptoms for dsld/epsa? There are two main effects noticeable, either the pasterns go floppy or the suspensories go hard. Does he sit like a dog when he rolls, repeatedly stand downhill, lean on walls, have trouble standing for the farrier? Have his back legs gone straight? Has he been mildly lame in different legs over the years? They can all be symptoms.

A have a friend whose horse had it and in the early days giving him something exciting to do like jumping would perk him up, but he became increasingly lethargic over time.
 
BethH said:
Just as an aside mine went through a spell of being very lethargic, could be in his diet - some sort of imbalance, mine turned out not to be able to tolerate a feed change to a feed with more lucerne in it which should have been better quality than his old one. I seem to be hearing a few stories of lethargy and how odd the balance in the grass has been this year too. The weird thing is that as a punt, I put him on a course of Global Herbs Restore tonic as getting desperate for him to start sparkling again and he has really perked up, most odd. He has had a number of issues over the last 18mths and I think he has been feeling quite low with life, he almost became withdrawn and quite switched off, which after 11 years of trying to get him to calm down & slow down was quite unnerving! I can't guarantee that it is only the "Restore" tonic but he tanked me round the farm a couple of days ago and was so oblivious to his riders instructions that I actually came home thrilled. It's about £20, might be worth a shot, it seems to have detoxed my horse & put him back on track!
Click to expand...

I would look at the diet.
I started giving all mine magnesium. One of them became worryingly lethargic after about a month. After some thought, I took her off it and she perked up. The other 3 are all still on the magnesium and are fine - it seems to be doing the expected job with them.
 
Thanks for all the ideas. Trev is perfectly happy to trot/canter/jump & is 'straight' with no odd 'skipping' steps on transitions. He is a bit switched off/withdrawn, but only a bit, & has pretty much always been like that. If he was a 25 year old patent safety in a riding school, you would think that he was just a kickalong, but he won quite a lot in his racing career & I've downloaded his races & watched them. It is definitely him racing & winning!

I have tried a month's Red Cell on two occasions with no difference. Never lame, no odd stance/behaviour, neuro workup for wobblers etc showed nothing.

H'mm Chameleon, some things sound similar but others don't. He has lost his overtrack, but will get it back & offer trot extension if persuaded. Very slow walk. Still wants to jump - I've jumped him up to 1 metre within the last few months when he was having a good patch. I've watched the video a lot & he looks extremely athletic. If I take him in the school & leave him on the buckle, he will happily mooch about whereas when he was ulcery he'd stop every few strides. But I know that ulcers can result from the pain of KS.

Ohhhhh...what to do...??!! TBH I am embarrassed to ring the vets as I'm sure they think I'm a bit funny in the head. But he ought to be 100% healthy & he just...WON'T...go...

I will see if I can find the video...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpFyiaLK-d4

And one xc schooling from April this year...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54BB0KSCYDU

T x
 
Top vid above was October 2014; bottom one was April 2014. And in between (July 2014) we had this:

http://vid154.photobucket.com/albums/s258/catembi/TrevJuly2014_zpsc00fe039.mp4

He is up & down all the time...def having a 'down' atm, then he will suddenly have an 'up' & we have a few really good weeks, I start planning on booking a lesson...then he goes slow again. I am tearing my hair out. Adrian's sharer wants to buy him in Jan & a young girl wants to share Trev, so atm if I saw an ex-racer in need of a home, I'd probably have it as I am getting towards the end of my tether with not riding properly.

We do 10 mins a day as it's the only gauge I have to see how he's feeling. Plod about, minute or two in trot, pop a jump if there's one up, go in. I time it so as not to do too much with him. When he was having a good patch in Sept/Oct, I was increasing his daily work by 5 mins a week - we were up to 25 mins, picking up the lateral work etc, & then the inevitable slide. Same pattern for 2 1/2 years.

T x
 
We did the ulcer thing a year ago. The full scope-gastrogard & other things - rescope. He was v withdrawn & miserable when ulcery, & really *desperate* for food. Kicked & bit on rug change etc. All that has now stopped, & not come back. (FWIW, the GG had no effect whatsoever - confirmed on rescope - but ranitidine fixed it pretty quickly.)

T x
 
MSP - what I understand about science would go on the back of a stamp, but basically GG & ranitidine both reduce acid but in different ways. GG is a proton pump inhibitor & ranitidine is an H2 receptor blocker. So if one doesn't work, the other sometimes does. Ask your vet about giving it a go. Mine perked up within 24 hours & was totally different within 3 days, so you will know pretty quickly if it's going to work! Ranitidine is faaaaaaaar cheaper too! Good luck!

T x
 
catembi said:
Top vid above was October 2014; bottom one was April 2014. And in between (July 2014) we had this:

http://vid154.photobucket.com/albums/s258/catembi/TrevJuly2014_zpsc00fe039.mp4

He is up & down all the time...def having a 'down' atm, then he will suddenly have an 'up' & we have a few really good weeks, I start planning on booking a lesson...then he goes slow again. I am tearing my hair out. Adrian's sharer wants to buy him in Jan & a young girl wants to share Trev, so atm if I saw an ex-racer in need of a home, I'd probably have it as I am getting towards the end of my tether with not riding properly.

We do 10 mins a day as it's the only gauge I have to see how he's feeling. Plod about, minute or two in trot, pop a jump if there's one up, go in. I time it so as not to do too much with him. When he was having a good patch in Sept/Oct, I was increasing his daily work by 5 mins a week - we were up to 25 mins, picking up the lateral work etc, & then the inevitable slide. Same pattern for 2 1/2 years.

T x
Click to expand...

He looks in pain in that clip. Very much like a mare here who has very mild KS and when she's sore and needs physio, she looks like that, although she is not so generous natured and will nap and threaten to rear if she's not right. My vet charges £30 a plate for xrays, plus £30 setting up and call out. Usually he takes around 5 plates.
 
Have to say that yours looks very similar to how mine went - just shuffling along. In the trot video he is toe dragging behind - does this decrease the more work he does i.e. If you try working him hard for 10 mins and then stop for 5 mins then start again does the toe drag decrease while he is working and then reappear after a rest? Also he looks to me like he keeps going short on the off hind with every transition - would be better to see both reins, do you have any other videos?
 
X rays aren't conclusive for kissing spines causing the unwanted behaviours Booboos, but they are conclusive that impingement has happened, surely? You can see where the bone remodels as a response.

A big problem is that most cases of kissing spines are associated with one or more of ulcers, sacroiliac, hock or hind psd pain, so removing the kissing spine pain doesn't stop the unwanted behaviours. It isn't that pain wasn't present, or that it wasn't removed by an op, but that there is still pain remaining from the other things.


OP, scintigraphy costs over a thousand pounds in the north west.
 
Last edited:
Yeah, I know scintigraphy is ££££££. It was one of the million things that was done to Adrian when I was trying to find what was wrong with him (EPSM).

The thing that puzzles me re it being KS is that he can have an upswing & be 90% normal. He is also not reluctant to jump in any way & makes a nice bascule. No issues with canter strike-offs. Never bucks; fine to tack up & mount. Not at all bothered about being saddled.

T x
 
It really doesn't sound like any KS horse I know of. I've known three close up and heard about several others. Bunny hopping, bucking, rearing yes but tiredness no. It can, ime, come and go with the weather, worse by far when cold. I'll take a look at your vids if my wet string is taught enough tonight, but from the description I'd be looking at something metabolic.
 
My limited understanding of KS and x-rays is that it can be a bit like navicular and x-rays, I.e. sometimes you have clear x-rays but the horse behaves as if it has KS and other times you have problematic looking x-rays but no symptoms. When Rusky was having his un diagnosed problems a KS specialist told me that without the specific symptoms and without amelioration with steroid injections he did not think it was KS despite the x-rays showing KS.

The scintigraphy is very expensive but might be more worth it diagnostically in the long run than spending smaller amounts of money and not getting an answer?
 
Apologies if you have already answered this but has he had blood tested during a bad period? Might be worth to look at liver and kidney function, evidence of recurring viral or bacterial infections, worm burden?
 
OK, in the video he looks just like my friend's dsld horse. Straight in the back legs, floppy in the back pasterns, unhappy. The other thing it looks like is a sacroiliac problem, but I would not expect that to come and go as much as you are describing, while I know that the dsld symptoms did. This would be desperate news given that you have one with EPSM, but if he was mine I'd be having the cheapest investigation done, a scan of his suspensory ligaments to see if there is any damage visible. It's not definitive, but neither is a nuchal ligament biopsy and I think that's the only test available.

I hope I'm wrong, and that you find something simple soon.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top