Interpreting Hoof X-Rays of EMS Mini

[HollyWoozle]

Hello all! The ongoing saga of our family mini with EMS continues. Ertugliflozin had a great impact initially but the issues came back and he's now on canagliflozin. His fronts have now been x-rayed, showing rotation, and farrier is due in the morning to trim with the x-rays to hand. His weight isn't too bad (he does have some fat pockets remaining and he could definitely be much better, but everything is weighed, measured, soaked etc.) and my parents are strict with him in terms of maintenance but we just can't seem to get it right.

I have no experience of interpreting x-rays and wasn't present for the vet visit since the pony belongs to my parents and lives at the family home with them. I've been reading about how to do this but can't get my head around it. Vet seems confident that with the correct trimming by our farrier, who is excellent (and who the vets themselves would've recommended), we can make a big difference and I will be there for farrier visit tomorrow. He is walking very well right now and even trotting around but he is on bute and paracetamol.

Any thoughts or opinions much appreciated - thank you!

 

[holeymoley]

Not much else to add other than the left is slightly worse than the right. He also seems to flare to the outside which is normal to an extent, most horse's will have different angles medially(my EMS loads the inside and flares to the outside, and my youngster who doesn't have EMS loads the outside and flares to the inside!) the flare may indicate that he's on too long a trim cycle though. The growth rings on the left x-ray would suggest to me that there has been an underlying issue, if you look closely you can see that they curve downwards towards the heel. He is either quite high heeled and/or there have been changes inside the hoof happening over a period of time. Apologies, I'm not sure of his history but you state that there's an ongoing saga with EMS so presumably this has maybe been in the background for quite a while.

 

[nettle]

Why are the heels so high? That won’t be helping. Don’t wish to come across as one the disciples of the nutty barefooters, but those heels are not right.

 

[HollyWoozle]

Thanks for your input and apologies for the slow reply, missed the Friday reply for some reason!

The x-rays were taken not long before next trim was due and he had grown a lot of heel, due to EMS/lami, and feet looked a bit wild. Farrier has now been and trimmed accordingly and they look a lot better and he appears to be walking pretty well. I really know very little about hoof balance, stupidly, and am interested to hear any views on the x-rays as I had no idea really how severe the rotation is. Vet and farrier seem confident he will come sound again and hopefully having these done will help with longterm management.

Pony has had issues on and off for many years - he had EMS prior to purchase (was undisclosed of course) and quite early in my family’s ownership of him he had a bout of lami which is what led to a diagnosis. Since then we have tried to manage him as best we can but periodically he will have a flare-up (although for the most part he has been sound and comfortable). I think there has been some mild rotation for some time to be honest but in the past he might get footy and then come good again within a matter of days, so we never got as far as x-raying. It’s just in the last few months we’ve really struggled to get on top of it for some reason. Sigh!