Kissing spines before and after xrays

Wagtail

Wagtail

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For those of you who are interested. Here are the before and after xrays of my horse's spine. In November he was diagnosed with ten spinal processes touching and had five of them removed:

Before 1
preop1.jpg


After 1:
postop1.jpg


Before 2:
preop2.jpg


After 2:
postop2.jpg
 
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A lot of ex race horses have it. I believe it is due to breaking them in and working them hard too young. Both the exracers on our yard have it, and I now suspect that my late ex racer had it too. Other horses are born with the condition. Yet others develop it from compensating for other conditions such as bone spavin and suspensory desmitis. It often goes hand in hand with sacroilliac dysfunction.
 
Jo1980 said:
Wow, thank you for sharing those.

How is he now? Are you able to ride him or will you be able to ride him?

How old is he?
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He is ten next month. I have just started riding him again, just in walk. He is coming on well. Obviously a long way to go yet though, but he was unridable before the op, so I am delighted so far.
 
Wagtail said:
A lot of ex race horses have it. I believe it is due to breaking them in and working them hard too young. Both the exracers on our yard have it, and I now suspect that my late ex racer had it too. Other horses are born with the condition. Yet others develop it from compensating for other conditions such as bone spavin and suspensory desmitis. It often goes hand in hand with sacroilliac dysfunction.
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I would agree with that for any type of horse. If you go on all fours and someone wants to sit on your back, you will brace to take the weight. That's what horses do when we back them. They brace themselves, which means tightening the whole back...therefore it is tense and not relaxed. Can't blame them, it is a natural reaction. If we take things really slowly, working for short periods, they get used to it, accept it and relax, so the tension goes and the back can swing freely, keeping everything open. If we just carry on regardless, do too much too soon, they never learn to relax the back and swing freely. Long term, it is going to end up in something going wrong and I am of the belief that KS is one of the possible results.

Obviously it is only my belief, I have never conducted studies or anything. It's just a conclusion i have come to over the years, knowing the history of quite a few horses that have had it.
 
Taken from a post I made on another thread today:

Unbelievably, I am back riding my boy after giving up on him last year. He had the traditional surgery of having five processes taken out under standing sedation. The op went really well and his movement was noticably better almost immediately. His rehab went well (was operated on in November 2011), and I was back riding him, but had issues with him head tossing, and the freaking out after being girthed, was worse than ever. Last summer I tried one more time, but even lungeing him was a disaster as he kept having panic attacks at the lunge roller and pessoa. So I gave up last Autumn.

In one last ditch attempt to address his panic issue, I decided to treat him for ulcers. After only four days on abprazole I tried him in the saddle and he was fine, even with a tight girth. A week later, I got on him and he didn't batt an eyelid. I have been lunging him in the equiami and he's going well so far.
 
Thanks for that Wags, that must have been some surgery - I wondered how much the Vets removed in these instances. It would be interesting to do a study of all horse proven to have KS and compare their breaking dates - I have a strong suspicion that this is a major problem for TB's - which makes me the last person to do the test!!!

However; if I ever come across ridiculous amounts of money again - one of the things I would do with it is too advertise widely the issue of training two year old underdeveloped horses and doing all I could to stop it.
 
I know nothing of the condition, but why do they remove a chunk of the dorsal spine rather that just shaving a bit off? Would it callous?
 
zigzag said:
Didn't the case used to be that with a horse with KS the spine would eventually fuse together?
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Speaking as someone who has various bones in the process of fusing together, I'd say - YOU HAVE NO FLIPPIN' IDEA HOW PAINFUL IT IS!

Sorry to shout - I think I need some more Bute.
 
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