Kissing spine, one year on, and going backwards????

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TandD

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After reading all the experienced advice I read on here given to people, I should like to pick your brains on the above topic – kissing spines and see if anyone can help me to!

I would like to thank you for reading this in advance, for it is quite long! And for any answers/help you give! I have found no other place to turn to and hope someone can come up with a solution! :S
I shall start right from the beginning..... I have owned for 4 ½ years a 15.3hh irish tb 12 year old, who last year was diagnosed with 6 vertebrae touching. He was in 6 days a week work, competed regularly, NEVER came home without a rosette. Hes is my pride and joy and whatever outcome of his problem (whether field ornament or not!) he has a home for life.

Ok his story: January 2011 he goes and gets 76% in a novice dressage test! Then comes down with abscess and puncher wound, about 1 month off...... during this time my parents buy me a new horse, and started concentrating on her. He comes back into work, little rusty but feeling good and happy. It was decided between my parents and i that i was allowed a new horse if my little guy went on majority loan, which he does beginning of april to a girl of 14 years old (she had ridden him for 3 weeks previously to get the feel of him), whose pony did both front tendons. We were lead to believe she was a good rider, and because my gelding is very genuine and tried very hard for you, i saw no problem in her riding. I often gave her help as going from a 13.2 to a 15.3 is a big leap. Within 6 weeks of her starting to ride him he complete changed becoming difficult in all areas, and very resistant and unwilling to ride and to cut it short i went to tack him up one day and he dropped to the floor like he just died!!!!!! , (she ended the loan agreement, and then bought and sent back 3 different horses within 6 months, as all reared/bucked/bolted with her)

His behavour obviously shocked me and we then gave him 3 weeks off, masses of physio, and tried every pad/girth sleeve under the sun to make him comfortable, but did not want to involve the vet just yet (costs) so carried on with a resistant and unwilling horse, till i tacked him up one day and he broncked when i did the girth up and ran away across the farm where i keep him. Mum decided th vet was in order. So cutting it short again bone scan and xray later (£2000) 6 vertebrae touching. Vet amazed he even let me sit on his back let along dressage and jumping! Poor horsey. Steroid and shockwave...no other options given, vet did it without our consent, horse to go on 2 months ‘field rest’. Then vet got us to put roller etc on....(over about 2 months gradually) but horse broncked etc etc again, back for more shockwave/steroids...throughout this he also had remedial farriery (£250 a time, times by 4), due to feet which i wont explain, but xrays were very poor (outside looked ok tho?!) so legs/hooves better position, vet recommended physio (£250 a time, times by 5?), to get rid of muscle spasms, referred pain etc etc which worked...we then did 4 months of back building work lunging loose (no gadets etc) and many hours of stretching.

After silly amount of money with physio we stopped getting her as she kept drawing out the job (‘oh i need to come again’ ‘ don’t do that yet’ etc etc) so eventually we took matters in to our own hands, as he gave signals that he needed to work again, and over a 2 month period we ‘re-backed him’ and by the end of February 2012 i sat on him! Personally i never thought id get a saddle on him, let alone sit on him, so good achievement. Since then we have had another physio out regualy

Throughtout this we also suffered stranges lock down and a tendon injury on the other horse :( , but my small guy was getting better and better (going even better than before the diagnosis), and we got 70% in our first comp since the diagnosis, but since then we have gone very down hill again. No saddle fits him well, he hates any bit in his mouth, his feet are going backwards. Hes become very resistant and unwilling when ridden, not ‘giving’ or haveing a contact. He wont really go fowards, and spends more time fighting me rather than working happly and consistently. About 1 month ago i went to get on and was about to sit in the saddle and he broncked with me - first time ever - giving me a very large shock, and has gone very down hill from there.

Its almost like he has a nervous disorder, and he is now just all round a very difficult depressing horse to own..the way he behaves its almost like RSPCA case who been stuck in chains his whole life, rather than wanting for nothing! Is this normal for a kissing spine horse to behave like this? How can i help him more? Any thing else i should be doing? Have i asked to much of him? What should i do :S

I ride him 5 days a week, cantering work, hacking, schooling and lessons, plus one free lunge day (he cant be lunged with gadets, as he gets to worried and it causes more harm than good). i like to vary his work...hes a bright little guy!

Im not to sure what answer i want, as i have sooo many questions..i think id fill way to much more space! :S

I guess advice and help on where to go next? I know we have made poor decisions with him, and have taken some advice without questioning it, so please don’t berate me for that..... but you put your trust in those who are specialists in their profession and don’t expect them to mess you around and take you on a wild goose chase.
If you want any more info on his condition, i have plenty of it!
Thank you for reading
 
Kissing spines is usually treated with an operation I think? Have you had the kissing spines treated? I think you should have maybe listened to the original physio and not brought him back into work so soon. It sounds like as soon as you got rid of the vet recommended physio (and the farrier?) and brought him back into work, you got away with it for a short while, but now you've been having a recurrance of the same problems and going slowly downhill.
 
Has he had a bone scan???

The reason I ask is coz my vet told me my horse had KS although the vetibrea were not touching, just close!! She asked me to go down the remedial treatment route with shoeing, shock wave etc etc and I refused and asked to go for the op straight away as I didn't want alternative treatments to fail then have no insurance money left.

I dont think she was expecting this as she then asked to do a bone scan to 'make sure'.

Turns out she didn't have KS, it was actually sacroilliac dysfunction which was causing her to dip her back to compensate therefore causing her vetibrea to close.

I swapped vets!!!

Bone scan was about £1200 but if I had gone on vets advise we would of been treating her for KS that wouldn't of worked because that wasn't the problem.

My horse also has changes to her navicular bone from conpensting so this problem has now thrown up a list of other problems which would of only got worse had the bone scan not been done.

Hope this helps
 
thank you or your post
the vet never offered the option of an operation, she jumped straight into the injections and shock wave, saying this would be fine and would work perfectly, and he would come back into the form that he was before. the farrier refered him back to his orginal farrier saying his work was done and it just needed maintaing. the vet was having us get him back in work within two month of his first treatment! this didnt work.... she has seen him every month and finds nothing wrong with him...... no pain, no werid/lame action..infact hes more or less as good as he could be.
 
no horse isnt in-operable, but after £6000 worth of treatment, insurance has run out, so unfortunaty we cant afford an opp....... and yes bone scan done..this is how we knew it was his back, no other hot-spots shown. many x-rays also showed this...
 
My vet said the only treatment more or less guaranteed to work is the op and even that only has a 70% success rate but if that doesn't work then nothing will.

Hence the reason I didn't want to go down the alternative treatment route.

I strongly suggest you get a bone scan done incase there is something else underlying, although if insurance has run out then this is gonna be costly!!

Also the op is about £2000 and that's not including stabling costs, nurse care, medication etc etc
 
i am really not sure, because in theory there should be no pain, everything has been done correctly, so we wonder if it is mental? if its just so fixated in his brain that it is going to hurt, and because of this he reacts and makes 'excuses' to avoid working? so it doesnt hurt like he may think it will....is there anyway to get over a mental barrier in a horse???? id never PTS...ive have him as the lawn cutter, but parents are addiment that after all the work and money that has gone into him he has to do something, as its not like they're cheap to keep
 
I wouldn't say this is the case as he was fine at first. Then the symptoms started later on. If he remembered the pain then you would of had trouble from the start
 
Sorry if i've missed it somewhere, but have you taken this horse's shoes off and turned it away? I'd give that a try. So often problems all over the horse are all down to the front feet going wrong then you're in a vicious cycle of treating all the follow on problems. I think, sort the front feet out, give a long rest then try again.

ETA - Is the horse still in heavy bar shoes?
 
Have you tried a bute trial that might give you a better indication if it is pain related and the treatment has not worked or if he has memories related to the pain.
 
id love to take off shoes, but pedial bone in such bad place that this would be impossible, and being a tb, slightly flatter footed than a normal horse but not as bad as some! i dont know if hed cope without shoes. hes in heartbars atm, vets recomendation, shes also wants to put wedges in to raise heel slightly, as pedial bone about 7 degrees off in front feet and 10 at the back, but this would surely push his back out even more? causing more problems? vet and farriers also dont like the idea of no shoes, and upsetting farriers and vets by 'telling them their job' (as they put it!) i dont want to lose them!
 
no.. i havnt tried a bute trial.... this may be something that we can try, thank you for suggesting it! i guess a high doesage of bute would be needed, and for a reasonable length of time..........
 
TandD said:
id love to take off shoes, but pedial bone in such bad place that this would be impossible, and being a tb, slightly flatter footed than a normal horse but not as bad as some! i dont know if hed cope without shoes. hes in heartbars atm, vets recomendation, shes also wants to put wedges in to raise heel slightly, as pedial bone about 7 degrees off in front feet and 10 at the back, but this would surely push his back out even more? causing more problems? vet and farriers also dont like the idea of no shoes, and upsetting farriers and vets by 'telling them their job' (as they put it!) i dont want to lose them!
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I think you've given them a fair crack already to sort this their way. I'm sure the barefoot lot can help you much more than I can but I'll put money on more complicated shoeing being the exact opposite to a solution to this problem. You may have too much already gone wrong with this horse to put right, but please think about giving the horse some time out with no shoes, buted up if needs be. What have you got to lose?
 
You can only say there should be no pain, if the treatment worked. If it didn't work or the problem recurred then there would be pain. I think to assume his problems are psychological would be a mistake.

So you wouldn't PTS ok that's fine, but is it your decision? If parents own the horse and say he has to work then surely they're saying they won't retire him, but would instead PTS? Surely they're not so heartless as to say he must work despite being in agony? That's not a realistic option anyway because it sounds like you'd get injured. Spending "x" amount doesn't guarantee a rideable horse, sometimes it takes more money and sometimes no amount is enough. I think your parents need to be realistic about that. Horses aren't something you spend money on and then "get your moneys worth" unless you're hiring a horse by the hour at a riding school.
 
No wonder the horse is injecting to being worked. It has rotated pedal bones.

Is your farrier shoeing with the assistance of x rays?
 
hes in aluminuim racing plate heart bars! as steel very heavy and just didnt seem to like thm.....can you recommend a good bare hoof person? that may be i can just even discuss the problem with, see what they recomend.
 
yes he is, but the horse, we believe has always been like this, and we never had a problem before... infact they are even better than they were before we started have the problems!
 
If you start another thread on here saying barefoot help wanted the people on here might see it. You could put a link to this thread in it. Sorry I can't help more, I don't know where to find barefoot trimmers.
 
TandD said:
hes in aluminuim racing plate heart bars! as steel very heavy and just didnt seem to like thm.....can you recommend a good bare hoof person? that may be i can just even discuss the problem with, see what they recomend.
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PM Oberon on here, she talks a lot of sense. :)
 
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