info on navicular...

[serena2005]

as the title says, vet told me its navicular that my loan horse has and will be lame for the rest of his life.

im just trying to find out more about it. any info would be great thanks.

 

[Morrigan_Lady]

I would be surprised if he is lame for the rest of his life!
One of ours has navicular and is very sound and still lives life to the full.
Still, I spose it will also depend how badly your horse has navicular.
As he is on loan to you, will you keep him? Or will he go back to his owner?

 

[serena2005]

his owner pays for him and she wants to get rid.. one way or the other and the vet said today that she hasnt got a chance of selling him now.

he also has collapsed heals, vet said he will have to be on bute every day, according to how lame he is each day. hes not very hopefull for him.

you can sort of see how flat his hoof is in this pic.

 

[serena2005]

and one from the side just to get the whole picture!

 

[ihatework]

worth doing a search in the vets section as it has come up a lot recently.

one thing that would be helpful is a diagnosis of disease or syndrome.

There is quite a bit that can be done but no miracle cures.

hoof management is crucial - traditional school of thought is remedial farriery although there is also quite a large barefoot contingency. I personally have gone the shoeing route with success. A decent farrier is essential whether shod or unshod.

Navilox used to be prescribed lots but current thinking is that this is pretty ineffective.

Other things to investigate, but by no means gaurenteed to work are
tildren - a bisphosphonate given IV that alters rate of bone turnover
shockwave therapy
high grade joint supplements / adequan

and if all else fails you can keep the horse comfy on bute for a while

 

[Morrigan_Lady]

How old is the horse?

Maybe shoes with rolled toes, egg bars and pads would help abit more. The rolled toes and pads would act as a sort of shock absorber.
Max has had navicular for about 2 years now and he has all the above shoeing plus bute. We do play around with the amount of bute he has though, like when its really cold we may give him two sachets, but at the moment as the ground is soft and he is doing well he is on one sachet, which, to be honest isnt mush at all for a horse of his size and weight!

 

[brightmount]

[ QUOTE ]
vet told me its navicular that my loan horse has and will be lame for the rest of his life.

[/ QUOTE ]

Two sweeping statements ... was your vet really that unhelpful?

"It's navicular" : That can mean just about anything. It will help to know whether he has bone damage or if it's just the soft tissues that are affected. Barefoot can help with soft tissue navicular syndrome as it is all about meticulous hoof balance and bringing the collapsed hoof structure back to where it should be. It's a gradual process and requires commitment in the short term. It also helps stimulate circulation to the hoof. I use a podiatrist trained in the KC LaPierre method (high performance trim).

"will be lame for the rest of his life" there will be enough examples of written off navicular cases to encourage you if you search this forum or the barefoot websites. My horse was days from being PTS in January 2006. She had her shoes off for the MRI scan and a few weeks later had her first barefoot trim. She was immediately more comfortable and looked generally better balanced. She transitioned with the aid of hoof boots and pads. She was field sound within weeks and ridden again three months later. She has gone on to compete, and has never had a day's lameness since. Now that I know her condition was man-made not genetic she is running with the stallion this summer.

Don't be too discouraged until you know the full picture and PM me if you like

 

[serena2005]

[ QUOTE ]

How old is the horse?

Maybe shoes with rolled toes, egg bars and pads would help abit more. The rolled toes and pads would act as a sort of shock absorber.


[/ QUOTE ]

he is 7, he has bar shoes on

 

[serena2005]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
vet told me its navicular that my loan horse has and will be lame for the rest of his life.

[/ QUOTE ]

Two sweeping statements ... was your vet really that unhelpful?



[/ QUOTE ]


yes he was very vague! lol owner is speaking to him tonight and calling me in the morning.

Herbie cannot go barefoot, he has collapsed heels and totally flat feet. he is crippeled without shoes on he basically walks on the soft bulbs at the back of his hoofs and his frogs. and has increadily soft soles.

i cant say wether its bone damage or soft tissue, as i dont know but when he had x-rays earlier on in the year all that showed up was that the coffin bone was completly flat in both front feet (and i think its the off fore) slightly tilted inwards.

i know its not a long time but hes had the bar shoes on since april, and the farrier (who is bloody good) says hes has hardly any heel growth,and it doesnt help as his heels are growing inwards rubbing his soles which give him corns... its a nightmare

 

[lizzie_liz]

In order to be properly diagnosed with Navicular X rays are not sufficient.

I have a horse with Navicular and was diagnosed when she was 6. She was sent to Newmarket where she underwent x rays and scintigraphy. This showed about 25% uptake of the stuff they injected and was diagnosed with navicular. The vets though were surprised how lame she was.

She was put on a course of bute which was not effective, injected with steriods in the coffin joint and egg bar shoes. These methods all proved ineffective.

We then claimed LOU, removed her back shoes and turned her away. After the winter she came sound and we started working her again in 2003, she started competing 2 years ago and has not had a days lameness. We have just affliated her BD and we went to Trailblazer finals SJ last summer.

navicular is not necessarily a right off

 

[serena2005]

the vet mentioned him going for more tests a few weeks ago but didnt mention anything today as he knows the owner isnt interested in spending any more money on him.

its reassuring that there is hope thank you, i just hope someone can see that in him and rescue him becuase i cannot afford to take him on with all his problems.

the owner was going to claim LOU but checked her insurance and shes only covered for him being PTS, at the end of the day its the money that matters and it breaks my heart hes still only a baby really!

i thought if u claimed loss of use you couldnt compete?

 

[ihatework]

From the sounds of it, as the horse seems to have had very poor foot balance in his past I would hazard a guess that it's more likely to be syndrome than disease, although that is my uneducated opinion so discuss further with your vet.
If you have insurance then do explore having MRI and/or other tests done to assertain the exact problem you need to deal with, as navicular syndrome is really a fancy saying for caudal heel pain and can be down to a number of different things, each of which may have a different method of treatment.
I have had success with shoeing and can appreciate your concerns about barefoot. From your pictures and in comparison to how my horse is shod I would say the egg bars my horse has fitted extend further back and are slightly graduated at the heel. They are also filled with a supportive gel called equipack, insurance is currently paying for this at the moment although I will be broke from November onwards!
I'm sure my case is different to yours as the horse has been well shod from day 1 and even when diagnosed the vet commented on his good foot balance.
I'm now 9 months on from the initial diagnosis and although he won't event again the horse is out competing sj at 3'/3'3" on good surfaces. So all hope is not completely lost!

 

[Doublethyme]

Sadly whilst I understand completely your reservations about your horse having no shoes, it is not possible to improve the feet dramatically in shoes, shoes will deteriorate the condition, not improve. Egg Bar shoes will "support" the heels too much and therefore the heels will not even attempt to correct themselves and will in fact deteriorate, with the bar crushing the heels even more - think of how a leg is when it is in plaster, if kept in permanently it withers and becomes even more useless than before. All this shoes supporting the hoof is rubbish - the hoof needs stimulation to correct itself, something that cannot be done with shoes on.

For a 7 year old I would be inclined to pull the shoes and give him an extended holiday, but with decent trimming whilst he is on that holiday and see what you have at the end of it. Difficult situation obviously for you, as he isn't your horse.

 

[ihatework]

I really do find this barefoot versus shod debate interesting. I agree I am a skeptic but also am not so against learning new things that I am not willing to listen at all. In fact I had booked to go on Sally2008's demo as I was interested to explore things further. Unfortunately they couln't get enough barefoot peeps there.
There are no right or wrongs with horses, and I fully accept that lots of horses could benefit from being unshod. However what I take exception to is the barefoot clan thinking that barefoot is the only acceptable method of curing every ailment under the sun. Unfortunately not true.

I take your comments:

'Sadly whilst I understand completely your reservations about your horse having no shoes, it is not possible to improve the feet dramatically in shoes, shoes will deteriorate the condition, not improve.'

Okay take for example my horse. TB type, feet well maintained all his life, as shown radiographically to be in good balance. Good horn, no lost shoes, no cracking etc. kept short at the toe and with quarter clip shoes offering good heel support. Horse turned away for 9 months starting in the winter. Shoes taken off and trimmed regularly and he coped very very well while the ground was soft. Come June time when the ground hardened up (despite still mooching around field with good grass cover) horse became bilaterally lame in front although feet still looked in good condition. Lame enough for me to think he had laminitis.
As soon as shoes went back on horse 100% happier (so example 1 of shoes being applied to improve a situation). Horse back to work and after a short while went lame, navicular confirmed. Trust me at this point in time there was no way those front shoes were coming off!!! Egg bars and pads on .... horse sound (example 2 of shoeing improving things).

'Egg Bar shoes will "support" the heels too much and therefore the heels will not even attempt to correct themselves and will in fact deteriorate, with the bar crushing the heels even more'

But what if there is not a lot wrong with the heels in the first place?

'think of how a leg is when it is in plaster, if kept in permanently it withers and becomes even more useless than before.'

What is it that withers? I believe it is the muscle that is not being used. Are the horses heels muscle?

'All this shoes supporting the hoof is rubbish - the hoof needs stimulation to correct itself, something that cannot be done with shoes on.'

So are you saying that mear stimulation of an unshod horses hoof can correct bone and ligamental damage?

'For a 7 year old I would be inclined to pull the shoes and give him an extended holiday, but with decent trimming whilst he is on that holiday and see what you have at the end of it. Difficult situation obviously for you, as he isn't your horse.'

I actually wouldn't completely disagree with you here as obviously the horse has issues with its feet that in time could hopefully at least partially be resolved. I wouln't however be removing shoes at this time of the year, come november maybe.

 

[ecrozier]

Echo ben_and_jerrys, good points well made.
My mare was diagnosed with navicular in 1997, as a 6 year old. Lame in one foot, 3 months field rest and navilox, then brought back into work....lame in other foot! Same treatment, came sound.
With an excellent farrier (who has sadly left the country

sob), rolled toe egg bar shoes, and for a while navilox (although we quit that once the insurance stopped paying out!), she came sound within a year and we haven't had a day's lameness with it since. Back on normal shoes now although keep the rolled toe/quarter clips, partly as a precaution with the navicular, and partly because she now has arthritis problems in her front fetlocks.
Re barefoot, we tried it with her hind legs, as the condition of her feet tends to fluctuate and the hind ones in particular crack sometimes. We managed it for 18 months, and it did improve the condition of her feet in terms of the cracking, however it is really flinty where we live, and she just wasn't comfortable. She was very reluctant to walk on the stony paths we had, and despite having quite hard feet that aren't desperately flat (never had any brusing/abcess from the stones which many people do struggle with round here) we could tell she just wasn't happy. So we put the hind shoes back on and she is now absolutley fine again on the stones. I persevered with the conditioning as long as I could but she just wasn't happy, so I had to go with what made her most comfortable.
Back to the OP, can you possibly give him the time off in a field? For this, maybe the shoes off would be a good idea as long as the ground is soft enough (OK at the mo!) not to wear down his already flat feet.
I know several other navicular horses as well as mine who are happy and sound, so needn't be a write off!
Good luck!

 

[serena2005]

im blown away by the response! i didnt think id get soooo much information thankyou everyone.

i can understand about taking his shoes off, i can see the logic to that but im sure my farrier and vet would advise me not to... to give you an example at the start of last summer (ground still soft) he had a kick in the field and pulled a front and back shoe off. the vet thought he has fractured his pelvis because he was so crippled, as soon as he got shoes on he was nearly sound!! i couldnt bare to see he walk around that uncomfortable how can that do any good??

i would love to give him a holiday out in the field, but i dont hink his owner is going to give him that long

this is what his feet looked like before the owner let me take over his shoeing. her farrier didnt see anything wrong.

i have spoken to my farrier about the gel stuff, but it said he's past that it wouldn't ,ake any difference now.

and giving him heels is an option but we were testing the bar shoes 1st.

farrier says his conformation doesnt help the matter of his rubbish feet

 

[mrussell]

This is a very interesting post and my only advice is - try everything and trust no one! My vet wanted my fella PTS when hew as diagnosed with Nav Disease, I got him referred to Newmarket who decided he had the syndrome not the disease but could get him sound despite having £5k of insurance money to play with- he is now sound in Cytek shoes (full soled that suit his flat TB feet).

Vets and farriers alike DETEST cytek but they work for my boy.

Good luck overcoming those who are so fixed in their opinions that they would persuade from trying to find a way to help you and your GG.

 

[brightmount]

Oh I remember now - your original post a while ago with those totally shocking photos. Your farrier has improved his feet no end since then.

What a difficult situation when it isn't your horse, and the owner has so little interest in the poor boy. I totally believe he isn't a lost cause at his age. I still would go the barefoot route as I have seen it create concavity, stimulate growth and correct underrun heels. But I'm not saying there aren't other approaches... exactly, navicular isn't a death sentence.

(If the owner thinks she will get an insurance payout from having the horse PTS she may find otherwise. It really depends on whether the vet will declare the horse needs immediate euthanasia on humane grounds.)

 

[brightmount]

[ QUOTE ]
i can understand about taking his shoes off, i can see the logic to that but im sure my farrier and vet would advise me not to... to give you an example at the start of last summer (ground still soft) he had a kick in the field and pulled a front and back shoe off. the vet thought he has fractured his pelvis because he was so crippled, as soon as he got shoes on he was nearly sound!! i couldnt bare to see he walk around that uncomfortable how can that do any good??

[/ QUOTE ]

I should qualify what I was saying as it looks like I haven't read your posts ... obviously he would be dependent on boots and pads for some months after going barefoot, and I have to admit I wouldn't use a farrier, but a KC LaPierre trimmer (this will probably start an argument, but it's my opinion based on my own experience).

 

[Tia]

I don't know a whole lot about navicular apart from the mechanics of it, as had never personally dealt with a horse with it......however just recently one of mine was diagnosed with acute navicular. I was obviously upset about this, however the vet and farrier are both very upbeat about it; both believe it is not chronic.

My mare is heavily pregnant and vet believes that it is down to her extra weight that she is carrying. He believes that once she has dropped her foal that she should be back to normal again....I have to say I was a little skeptical to be honest.

Anyway, my horses are all trimmed by an excellent farrier every 6 weeks (they are all barefoot). He keeps their feet level so can't say that any of this is down to him at all. Well he was here a week ago and has trimmed my mare with her horn slightly shorter than her frog, to encourage her to step down onto her heels more. He said he would make changes over the next couple of months and do it gradually; sounded good to me, however......even before he left my farm after trimming, the darned mare was out of her shelter that she has barely left for the past couple of months, and was out grazing at the far end of her big field. She is still doing this and she appears relatively sound - that was just a week ago remember! I am now feeling much more hopeful, and I really do have to thank some of the members on this forum for replying to my navicular thread in Lounge - you have all given me hope now, so thank you so much.

 

[serena2005]

ben and jerrys--- u have just jogged my memory, he did say he has caudal heel pain. is that better or worse?

 

[Orangehorse]

I went to a Pete Ramey (USA farrier/barefoot specialist) talk last year and he more or less said that any horse that hasn't got bone damage from navicular could be brought back to soundness by being barefoot even if some might need to wear hoof boots for riding - but isn't that better than death?

They have flat feet as the internal structures of the foot aren't strong enough to support the coffin bone within the foot. The transition time is for these structures to function correctly and to strengthen and gradually the foot will become more and more concave, which lifts the sole from the ground.

It is a very complex subject and some horses, particularly TBs that are shod very early never develop a really healthy foot - (a bit like the "binding of feet" in China, which meant that adult women had tiny children's size feet so they could only hobble.)

There are some heart-warming stories of navicular horses being returned to soundness on the many barefoot websites, in the UK as well as the USA and Australia.

 

[Spot1]

There is a place IMO for horses being kept unshod in certain circumstances, with a wide variety of treatments available, that is but one possibility. It is always interesting to hear a range of views and opinion as to the best course of action as rarely are any two cases quite the same. The barefoot option appears to be pushed with an amazing zeal that far out ways any understanding of equine anatomy or physiology on the part of the practitioners.

This has the effect of marginalising the true benefits and the constraints of the barefoot system.

[ QUOTE ]
he [Pete Ramey] more or less said that any horse that hasn't got bone damage from navicular could be brought back to soundness by being barefoot

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Lack of bony damage does mean a far better prognosis but the statement ignores the constraints on unshod horses, type, conformation, work requirements, ground conditions, etc. A more realistic statement might be that [if] any horse could be brought back to soundness by the correct treatment, in some cases shoes would not necessarily be part of the treatment. Same for less

[ QUOTE ]
They have flat feet as the internal structures of the foot aren't strong enough to support the coffin bone within the foot.


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The internal structures supporting the coffin bone are the lamina, if they were unable to support the coffin bone within the foot it would drop through the sole.

[ QUOTE ]
The transition time is for these structures to function correctly and to strengthen and gradually the foot will become more and more concave, which lifts the sole from the ground.

[/ QUOTE ]
Flat or upright is a conformation type, the sole is modeled on the solar surface of the pedal bone and conforms to its structure.

[ QUOTE ]
some horses, particularly TBs that are shod very early never develop a really healthy foot - (a bit like the "binding of feet" in China, which meant that adult women had tiny children's size feet so they could only hobble.)


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Loved this bit

Very emotive stuff. Mutilation

I'll bear that in mind before I stake my next £1 at the races and have to watch the "red hot tip" hobble in last again.

 

[Orangehorse]

It is just a fact that many TBs have bad feet, it is universally accepted. The ones on the racecourse are young and fit and of course they are sound - for the time being. I was speaking to a TB owner last week who was lamenting the fact that her horse's feet were so bad, couldn't keep a shoe on, flat feet, etc, etc. And no, I did not suggest barefoot or boots, I kept quiet.

I am just reporting back what was said at the clinic.

I was sitting next to a lady whose horse had been put down at the age of 10 due to navicular, and she was practically in tears as Pete Ramey described the usual conventional treatment (which he used to do) and the frequent outcome, and his experiences of rehabiliating horses diagnosed with navicular. He was admanent that this should only be done after X rays to see what the problem is following a veterinary diagnosis.

I have witnessed that my horse's soles have gradually lifted from the ground and from being flat footed he now has a concave foot and and is now sound on the roughest, stoniest tracks, on the hind feet anyway. The hind feet develop first as they do the most work, providing the propelling power.
His front feet are becoming more and more concave also, something that has gradually developed over the months.

 

[serena2005]

this is all getting very confusing!!

my TB is a cross, and has never raced so there would be no reason for him to have been shod at an early age.

(if that is what you are getting at!!! divy moment)