Intermittent lameness please help!!!

My horse was intermittantly lame for 2 and a half years. Three thousand pounds of my insurance companies money was spent investigating it, including an mri scan with no cause for the lameness found. He was written off by the vet with a poor prognosis. He has now been sound for the last 6 months.It is like a dream come true, I am just so glad I did not have him put to sleep when things were at their worst.
 
Any heat or swelling? Ihave exactly the same problem with my mare, intermittent lameness, front left. Fine, then after exercise lame, 24/36 hours later ok, then again.... She is barefoot and ridden in Cavello boots??? Very frustrating and not nice to see her unsound! :-(
 
TaniaMarsden said:
Any heat or swelling? Ihave exactly the same problem with my mare, intermittent lameness, front left. Fine, then after exercise lame, 24/36 hours later ok, then again.... She is barefoot and ridden in Cavello boots??? Very frustrating and not nice to see her unsound! :-(
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have you had nerve blocks? then at least you can narrow it down a bit. Mine blocked to the hoof so I knew that was the area. Or could it be an abscess? come take weeks to burst.
 
Hi,
No nerve block - YET!
She did however have an abscess about 8 wks ago, poulticed it cleared up but did leave small hole in her hoof, makes me wonder if maybe still there and travelled to the coronet band??

victoria1980x said:
have you had nerve blocks? then at least you can narrow it down a bit. Mine blocked to the hoof so I knew that was the area. Or could it be an abscess? come take weeks to burst.
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or it could well be reinfected or not totally cleared as yet. I had a couple of reinfected ones last year when I didn't keep the exit "hole" clean for long enough after I thought it had cleared.
 
Heelfirst said:
Just wanted to comment on your case as I have been working on a very similar lameness today:
You say the horse is ok when belting around the field but different when it comes to school work.
My thinking is that the horse will come up sound with a caudal nerve block, if this is the case then the problem can be explained, understood and if in the early stages, treated.
It is very encouraging that there is a stage at which the horse appears sound, as this is the place to start.
Too many times I am referred horses that are periodically lame and the vet/farrier have started with the lameness, not with when the horse is sound!
I am sure it will all be ok.
If you can bare to watch the video of the shod foot at the bottom of this page it might help
http://www.rockfoot.com/why.html
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Watched the vid. Fascinating!
 
TaniaMarsden said:
Hi,
How were you able to tell reinfected? Did you have her hoof tested? Thanks!
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Hi, he just wasn't right slight on off lameness then one day was three legged lame. It was in the same hoof that had abscessed a few weeks before. If I were you I would get a farrier or someone with the testers asap to thoroughly go over the whole hoof.
 
Thank you, so helpful and I will, just sent text to farrier. Please keep your fingers crossed for us!! x



victoria1980x said:
Hi, he just wasn't right slight on off lameness then one day was three legged lame. It was in the same hoof that had abscessed a few weeks before. If I were you I would get a farrier or someone with the testers asap to thoroughly go over the whole hoof.
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Right. We went to the vets on Monday. He blocked at the foot on the left, then straight after went lame on the right. Vet said he was 3/10ths on left and 1-2/10ths on right. He blocked at the foot on the right too. After various xrays, the vet noted changes in the coffin joint believed to be arthritis. He stayed in overnight to have joint blocks on Tuesday to ensure this was he case. After the initial joint blocks into coffin joint Tuesday morning he went for more xrays. This time rather than just lateral and head on views, he also took xrays from "above" the hoof. These revealed changes in the navicular bone. Vet's prognosis was that it is either arthritis, navicular, a bit of both or foot imbalance is causing stress in both areas. The course of action to try corrective shoeing. I have already spoken to my farrier he is coming Friday to fit aluminium bar shoes with wedges. If no improvement in 2-3 weeks hes going to have steroids injected into the coffin joint to try and address that. If the lameness continues after this, then he will go back in to have the nerve blocks to confirm navicular. He could have done this this week but would have meant my boy stopping in another night and transport was already on the way. I hope this is helpful to others in similar situations. Does anybody have any advice?
 
Be aware that wedges can further contract and damage the caudal hoof - not what you want with a navicular diagnosis. You could not pay me enough to have them fitted to any of my horses. To put it crudely, if you had sore feet, would you want to wear high heels all the time?

Look on this blog and search for 'wedges' http://rockleyfarm.blogspot.co.uk/ especially a horse called Dillon. ETA and a horse called Dylon.

Remedial shoeing doesn't have as good a prognosis as a proper BF rehab with Navicular (just turning away with no shoes on, is not the same thing), why many Vets haven't caught onto this just perplexes me.
 
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My lad had coffin joint DJD and reverse rotated pedal bones.

to start had egg bar shoeing and steroid injections into the joint. It didn't work and after a few months I took his shoes off and didn't look back.

I personally wouldn't put wedges on mine - and my vet was pretty anti too and would only use them very short term.

Changes in the navicular bone do appear to be reversible and not always the cause of lameness when horses get MRI scanned. If I were you I would consider taking his shoes off/familiarise myself with the rockley farm blog before making any decisions and if you do go the shoeing route there isn't anything to say that you can't change your mind ;). It would be interesting to see any hoof pics if you have some.
 
Yeah we discussed that. He said that the more you bump the heel up the more it will break down. My farrier has the xrays I will ask him to forward them to me. The first thing I asked about was going barefoot but vet didn't recommend. He said the most important thing was to sort out his hoof-pastern axis and preserve his heel. It confused me a little.
 
It's hard to go against Veterinary advice, but on this issue, many Vets have not caught up with the latest thinking. In the end he is your horse, you need to evaluate all your options and decide what is the right thing for you and your horse. You are the one that needs to be able to sleep at night with the decision as you will be the one seeing the horse every day. The Vet, or myself (who have different opinions on the best way forward) wont lose sleep because of what you decide.

I ended up getting four, yes four Vets out to see my mare when she had hoof problems (the first three were happy with her hooves, I wasn't and didn't understand that they couldn't see the issue) and got a new Farrier. So Vet four and the new Farrier was the team my mare needed to solve her issue (which was real BTW).
 
I'd agree re vet probably need to change axis and preserve the heel - but I don't think that wedges will do the latter! - and that changing the axis more gradually might not be a bad thing either. Does your vet have any experience of barefoot? Mine seemed to have no strong feelings either way although wanted to shoe first - when I pointed out that hadn't worked and he didn't have any other options he agreed no harm in trying ;). He had sent a couple of horses to rockley previously.
 
Yes, problems, horses, more problems.
My thinking is that what you need is long term management of the situation, and from general reading, on here, and particularly the Rockley horses, I would be very reluctant to have special shoes long term. In my own experience they just don't work.
Also would be absolutely clear with vet and farrier that no sudden severe changes to hoof angles will be made.
I am not clear how any horse will be able to "re-model" or strengthen its own feet when we know that by shoeing we are taking over the role of the hoof in this respect.
I know I am being pretty wooly over "my opinion" but I don't have lots of hands on experience of all these problems, and obviously you are taking professional advice which is pretty much compelling. Good luck with this, but also consider contacting Nic at Rockley if you feel you need someone to talk through things. She has a lot of experience, and seems willing to help.
A lot of different things are done to help horses these days, whereas years ago there were few options.
Don't forget diet, as you want the hoof to grow strongly
minerals / hi fibre / lo sugar / linseed
 
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Also went down the egg bar route was a nightmare to manage. He was pulling one every 10 days ish eventually farrier had nothing to hammer to that coupled with a run of abscesses. It was awful. I know that eggbars work for some but I just cant see how a circle of metal can support his body better than the ground. Why don't you join phoenix barefoot forum and ask on there. Or pm heelfirst who will hopefully give you some general pointers.

Eta I noticed its wedges not eggbars. Agree re sorting his diet so he can grow good strong hooves (his diet may be fine already ?) Also echo contacting rockley farm. Nic is brilliant.
 
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Sounds like a very similar diagnosis to my boy.
In summary, intermittent lameness over a couple of months, went to vets in mid October, DJD in coffin joint diagnosed, some changes to navicular, also arthritis in hocks and mild kissing spines.
Joints were medicated, vet spoke to farrier who shod with wedges, horse came sound and when green light was given to re-start work we did, managed to hack out maybe six times and schooled very gently (ie walk, probably equivalent of one circuit of the school in trot) twice.
He went lame again in mid January. He is really struggling with the muddy fields at present so currently stabled with turnout in sandschool for a max of about 1hr a day.. on a daily dose of danilon to keep him comfortable.
Farrier is due tomorrow for other horse, so I am going to pull his shoes, he is lame in them anyway so I begrudge paying £60 for something that isn't helping him. As long as he is comfortable enough to be turned out once weather improves then he will be an oversized pet. Any potential benefit to him as a result of being unshod would be a serious bonus.
 
My cousin swears by turmeric. Feeds it to her horse with sarcoids. Think he has two tablespoons a day in his feed as Victoria says, with pepper and oil.
 
Please please please as one of the Dylan owners on the Rockley blog don't go down the wedge route - I did and believed my vets and did and pretty much came very very close to wrecking my horse and mine weren't particulary big either. Mine has been barefoot with thanks to some incredible help from Nic at Rockley for nearly 5 months now and he feels incredible - doing over an hours roadwork 3 times a week plus a couple of shorter sessions in the school - we haven't reached canter yet as he had over a year off and was incredibly weak in his body so we have been building it up very slowly. If you want a chat please PM me
 
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