I can hardly believe it but, my long term lame horse has become

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teasle

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Sound.
Fom jan 2010 my then 6 year old cob had an intermittant lameness. There was never anything to see, no heat, swelling, soreness on palpitation- nothing ever. He was fine in walk , but lame in his l fore in trot.
Over the next 8 months he had 3 lots of x rays, nerve blocks, intra articular nerve blocks, ultrasound scan , mri scan (which was inconclusive) , shock wave treatment, joint injections, and was confined to a small turnout pen. By the june the lameness was continuous, not intermittant.
After the inconclusive mri and a still lame horse, I gave up and the vet gave up too. I was finding him hard to handle in the pen , and I told my vet I was going to turn him out to see how he was next year. The vet did not think I should put him back in the field although he said that rest in the pen did not work, and I felt left without guidance and a lame horse wi th no hope of recovering.
The following spring I started to ride him again, just little walks- all well till one day he was really spooky. I trotted him up and he was the lamest that I hd ever seen him.
The next day I was thinking of having him put to sleep. I gave him 2 bute to keep him comfy over the weekend and turned him out, He trottrd down the field looking sound.
Then I got anoyher v et to see him. He looked a bit lame, she told me to give him regular bute and gently ride him. This ended up with him having 1 bute a day and this kept him sound for gentle hacking. This is now summer 2011.

From time to time I withdrew the bute, and within 3 days to 3 weeks he felt lame, so I gave it again and carried on. We tried devils claw supplements, but he was lame on those but ok on bute.
Till may this year he felt so good that I left off the bute again and have not needed it since.
I still do not know what was wrong , or if he will remain sound, but when my original vet camr to the yard and saw me tacked up and riding out his jaw dropped.
 
Good news! Fingers crossed stays sound.
If i was a betting woman i would guess at arthritis somewhere which has now fused itself and the bony changes are no longer occurring same thing happens in people once changes have occurred the pain goes. The problem with bute is it doesn't allow those changes to stop generally.
 
Dizzydancer said:
Good news! Fingers crossed stays sound.
If i was a betting woman i would guess at arthritis somewhere which has now fused itself and the bony changes are no longer occurring same thing happens in people once changes have occurred the pain goes. The problem with bute is it doesn't allow those changes to stop generally.
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Hi- can you explain why bute does not allow changes to stop. I think my 2 nd vet thinks this is the cause of the lameness but one day my first vet did an intra articular nerve block in the affected fetlock and he trotted up still lame.
 
Fingers crossed he stays that way. I would have guessed a little chip of bone floating around causing pain, finally settling somewhere. But I guess then the MRI should have shown that. Would an MRI not pick up arthritic changes too?
 
teasle said:
Hi- can you explain why bute does not allow changes to stop. .
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What do you mean? The bute doesn't do anything but address the inflammatory process and help with pain, it doesn't stop a progressive condition. There are a few treatments that can temporarily slow down the progress of arthritis but nothing is going to stop it completely and forever. But it can become less painful if the joint fuses (this only really works in joints without much articulation, like lower pastern and lower hock) and sometimes it just settles as the process goes on. It's quite well known that horses can have pain from changes before they are particularly obvious on x-rays and that the degree of bone formation is not necessarily indicative of level of discomfort. In other words, there are sound horse with terrifying joints and lame ones that look almost perfect.

I've also been talking recently about the role pain control plays in physiotherapy. In people (and dogs) a level of pain control plays a big part in allowing the patient to do enough physio to build muscle, which then stabilises the joint. It also addresses proprioceptive issues, where the body changes movement patterns to accommodate pain and this causes more strain, either on the initial area or in compensatory movement affecting other parts of the body. There is also a mental component - pain is depressing and organisms in pain are hard wired to not move.

Horses are a bit different as they are prey so react to pain differently than hunters like people and dogs. But otherwise, presumably the same rules apply. But modern common lameness treatment shies away from pain control for a variety of reason, not all to do with what is "best" from a medical perspective.

Which is all a long winded way of saying that the old method of "turn away, see if that works, if not, bute it and ride it" is not without some scientific validity! Of course we have other, much more targeted and usually more successful ways of treating horses now but a surprising number came right under the old "methods" too...
 
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