Kissing Spine

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ajn1610

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One of our horses has just been diagnosed.
She has had intermittent bi lateral lameness in front for a couple of weeks but has been not quite right for longer and had one severe lameness for about five days a several months ago. She was sore across her back and physio didn't help. Vet thought there was a possibility it was kissing spine and suggested x ray which confirmed the diagnosis.
It explains a lot, horse never really developed good top line despite being worked hard in correct outline and achieving at BD also would not extend properly and was very hit and miss over fences. (Hence has just been doing flat work for about the last year)
Vet has suggested steroid injections a course of muscle relaxants and then over several weeks building from walking in hand to lunging combined with lots of physio to try and help increase the gap between the spiny processes.
Does anybody have experience of this and what were the results? Was it successful and did horses return to previous level of work, did the kissing spine reoccur?
I've already decided surgery isn't an option I wouldn't do that to the horse.
Sorry for the long post thanks for reading any information good or bad please forewarned is forearmed!
 
sorry cant really help but i knew of a polo pony having kissing spine...she was retired from polo and put in foal and she had a lovely healthy colt .....so maybe you could consider to put her in foal

good luck with her and i hope someone can advice abit more
 
My horse was diagnosed with KS 4yrs ago, I ought to have gone the surgery route but he also had a ligament problem in his hip which actually caused more problem than the KS. Unfortunately kissing spines dont go away! if they are quite bad then the only option is to have them chiseled out. My husband is a Vet whom specialises in Orthopaedics so I made sure I was totally on the ball with what I could and couldn't do with him. He was always cold backed, didn't produce much top line, was difficult to get on the bit. I gave him 1yr off, just turned him away then brought him back into gentle work but he didn't really come back well enough so I talked my husband into buying me another horse for my 40th which then allowed me to forget about my plans for him and left him in the field for another year. Now he is back in full work and coping with schooling 3 times a week to advanced level but not supple enough to go out and win at this level, I lunge him in a Pessoa every other day and also hack him on the weekend, this was advised by Svend Kold at Willersley, I was fortunate enough to have him do a second opinion for my husband as we are on friendly terms, he advised surgery and told me he had operated on horses with less degree of KS than mine with great success but I just felt his hip would always hold him back so declined the surgery. He is on a maintenance of 1 bute sachet per day through the winter, wet months or if he has worked hard then I give him a sachet but try to leave it in the summer. Maybe you might try the pessoa for help if your horse doesn't have it too bad. Good luck
 
My horse has just been diagnosed with KS, we tried the steroid injections / physio route but unfortunately it had no effect. Well they physio did make his back a lot softer but as soon as ridden work was introduced he was back to square one. However physio had told me of many other horses that had been successfully treated with steroids, they affect different horses in different ways.
I have decided to go for the operation despite it seeming very drastic.
 
Mine was diag with KS 14 yrs ago, after many expensive treatments that didnt really work, I have rested him for much of the last few years or just done light work.
He has had a bute or danilon sachet ea day.
Seems happy enuf in himself, I wud say it depends on what you wud like to do with him perf wise, as they dont ever make advanced or grade A IMHO.
He is mainly a companion horse ,( we did nt have the op.)
 
Spike our 6 year old ID x was diagnosed with KS earlier this year. His symptoms made it very hard to diagnose and for a lot of his life before we got him it was put down to naughty horse syndrome. When it got to the point that no one could stay on him for more than 5 mins we got our vet out who with x-rays diagnosed KS.
Our options were laid out to us and the first ones were to have local and steroids injected into the areas the were causing the problems. This we did and the horse was a different animal. He became the horse we had hopped to buy in the first place.
Unfortunatly the injections only last 4 weeks max and no amount of correct riding / lunging in 4 weeks could make the difference and he went straight back to square one. Our options now were to re inject or to find a surgeon for him. Our vet was keen to reinject the area but his ways of getting people off were so severe that we were risking someone getting very hurt.
I came on good old HHO and asked for advice and was advised to contact Svend Kold at Willersleys Equine Vets, this I did and after seeing the xrays Svend decided he was happy to operate on Spike. This was a 4 hour drive for us but in our eyes it was worth it for one of the top surgeons in the country.
Spike is now 8 weeks post op and doing very well. The difference between Svend and many other vets is the rehab, a week after the op Spike was being walked out inhand for an hour a day and this was up till week 6. For the last 2 weeks we have been lunging Spike quite intensivly in a Pessoa and he has come on in leaps and bounds. We are planning on introducing some trotting poles this weekend.
I would 100% recommed the surgery Spike is like a different horse, he was a nervous wreck prior to the op and even getting rugs on was a issue and lunging out of the question. He is now the most loving caring horse I have ever met and moves far better than I could have imagined.
Yes the box rest seems long but 6 weeks goes quite quickly and he is now lunged in the morning and turned out for an hour or 2 in the evening and is coping brilliantly.
If you have any more questions please ask there are a few of us that have been through or are going through the same thing.
 
My hourse went down the palliative route 1st and I spent 6mths trying to get him muscled, was a bit of a waste of time for him although I have heard of others where the injections have kept them ticking over. I see the main problem being that you have to keep them so fit to keep the muscle to support the back, I used to feel guilty every time Ryan had a day off, the whole thing was terribly exhausting.

I have had the surgery and it is the best thing I could ever have done for Ryan, that is not to say it wasn't without much heartache, but I have a happy, content, pain free horse who is doing really well.

In my view it was kinder to operate on Ryan than not, but I accept it is a very difficult and personal decision and depends on the horse and owner, best results from surgery are from those who have the time to do the rehab properly and whose horses are younger with nothing else wrong. I believe the palliative route caused Ryan more pain than the op.
 
My boy was diagnosed in 2006 and initially had the steroid injections which were a complete failure and appeared to reduced the body's natural swelling and he was in agony which caused him to bolt around his field and when in his stable he presented as though he had colic, he went for surgery and is making a great recovery although a few non related problems have popped up in the meantime. I cannot recommend the surgery enough, if you can go for it the op is not as bad as you may imagine.
 
hi, my horse went for the op in january, and is the best thing i did as i have a totally different horse he is pain free now and feeling great, my horse had the steriod injection and it lasted 6 weeks so a waste of time and he had quite a servere case of kissing spine which was 4 and he had one long scare he looks just great, also before his op he over-reached so bad even in walk, it has stopped now he has never done it since.
his movement is so free.
i highly recommend the op and Dr Svend Kold did my horse also.
wish you look in what you decide
 
I feel that you have been incorrectly informed.Steriod injections are pretty much a complete waste of time- however, the operations are highly successfull- brilliant, and if done by the right surgeon, and if you have the right aftercare program- you're bound to have a usefull horse capable of competing and having a long and usefull life.

Kissing spine operations are very routine, and have been done on many horses since the 1980's. It has been trial and error amongst the vets but Svend Kold is one surgeon, and i think the only surgeon, that has got the knack of how it should all be done now. Unfortunately so many/most vets are still completely uneducated about how succesffull kissing spine operations can be. In fact I am so frustrated by this, and by the constant posts on here by people saying 'my horse has kissing spine, its the end of the road, nothing can be done'. Completely untrue . People have simply been mis-informed. It is scary. So I am trying to get HORSE magazine to do an article about it, also am e-mailing Svend Kold to get him to do an article about it with Horse and hound, as he has published a paper on it having had successes operating on many top performance horses.

FYI- my horse had his KS op two years ago- he has just won his first elementary dressage, Won all his novice dressage tests, qualified and placed the Nixon dressage champs, he is jumping double clears/getting placed BSJA, he has also done Intro level eventing. He too was a 'write off' before his operation as i knew no other route other than the steriod injections, that didnt work. But thankfully I got pointed into the right direction and he was operated on, and now he has not looked back!
So do please have a re-think about the operation. Its not a huge deal- you should have seen how healthy, happy and sparky my horse was 24 hour post op having had 3 half vertebrate removed!! He was comfortable enough to immediately start 2 x 10 min walk outs a day, building up to 2 hours walking a day over 6 weeks after the operation. Then he had a 6 week intensive lunging program, on top of the two hours walking a day, with the pessoa really tight to make him use his back ( surgeon's orders, a tight pessoa is disliked by a lot of people, but it is necessary for this) Then 3 months after his operation I was back riding him again!
 
Im sorry to hijak this post but you all seem to know so much. My horse has a very dipped back, it is not very strong and however much work I put into him he never builds topline, he is funny in his mouth and always seems to be tense when ridden, never relaxes. He pulls faces when i put his girth on but has no issues when putting the saddle on. I can press down and groom his back without him being any different. He previously was a SJ but now panics if there is a cross pole in the school. I have been trying to re-school him for dressage but I just cannot get him to work and relax. He fell over on the lunge a few weeks ago and since then he has completely changed character when ridden and has started rearing and bucking whilst ridden. Have now had vet out from newmarket and he has said we can go the route of x-ray but he seems to think it might be behavioural - I totally disagree as he has been a saint for the past 7 months, so we are on 2 bute a day for 2 weeks then 1 bute a day for 2 weeks and if that makes a difference in him then we are going the xray route, does this sound anything like what any of your horses have had as although I want to get to thebottom of this, I am really scared at the outcome. cookies and cakes for your help x
 
My Husband purchased a horse we knew to be for sale at xmas. He is a 16.2 TB ex racer with the attitude of a saint. After being told he had kissing spine about 2 months ago we were told the only reason he hadnt really hurt someone is cause he is so good natured. The previous people did not know he had KS and put his napping and a few other problems just down to him being naughty. When they decided to sell he had been neglected and was in a very bad state, very thin and being picked on badly. But me being me i wanted to know so after a physio told us to go to the vet we had our answer.
Now i have a stable full of people saying there is only one thing to do with the horse also we are not a good match. I am only 5ft and not the thinnest of people but after contacting the trainer and telling him all i ever wanted to do was hack and fun rides he said i would not have any problems and he would be surprised if i did.
So, he had the injections which were a waste of time, he has 8-9 spines causing problems and a few which are bad, but be careful that vets dont see pound signs when your horse is insured. Luck would have it that mine has paid for the injections and x-rays but we will be putting in a invoice before the op has been done for the insurers to sign off. its a good way of making sure they will pay. But what i will say is you know the best thing, i know he will be ok for me and he will do well if we can get him through the op. Its a long road after getting them right but for me the ifrst time i sit on him will be the best day of my life which will make all the tears worth it and the pleasure in telling everyone they were wrong. but it is ahrd seeing people leave the yard riding there horses. Chin up and stand tall for our horses that cant!!!
 
Lockpearl; You ought to get him investigated properly, MRI, x-rays etc as he could have injured his neck from his fall causing him to hollow his back to enable him to keep his neck rigid this way he can then pull himself along with his shoulders and not move or flex his withers and neck.
 
Ouija board there is a article about it in this months horse mag ,so you must have made a good case.
 
Lochpearl, please feel free to pm me if you want to ask me any questions, would be happy to try and help. Remember you know your horse best and you should trust your gut instinct. KS is not the end of the world and it may well be as simple as your horse having jarred himself and needs a bit of time to recover.

My 1st thought would be to get a really decent physio person to check him over, if he has tweaked something they may be able to put it right and if they are any good they will have a feeling if something is wrong and refer you to your vet for investigation in any case. One of the things you can try is to try to get your horse to arch his back, in many cases of KS, the horse are physically unable to do this because of the bones touching. If you run your fingers in the gullet between his front legs and follow it along his belly to around the girth area and dig your nails in a bit he should automatically arch, if he can't lift, there could possibly be an issue, a physio will be able to do this if you can't as it takes a bit of practise, it might give you a pointer to start off with.

Also, I agree with Dressage babe, you shouldn't just leave this to sort itself out, if your vet is not helping you then get a 2nd opinion but I feel the change in his personality is too dramatic to just be nothing.
 
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