Eggshells
Well-Known Member
This will be long, sorry. Venting mainly, but also grateful for any advice.
Starting at the beginning: April last year my horse damaged both hind suspensory ligaments, xrays showed changes at the insertion site, prognosis guarded but generally positive. 3 months of truly hellish box rest and in hand walking, paddock rest for a further few weeks (he started ploughing through fences so we gave up!), field rest until October when I started to bring him ever so slowly back into work.
Since then he's come back into light work: hacking 2-3 times a week, light schooling 1-2 times a week. Recently however, I stopped being 100% happy with how he was going and felt there might again be an issue. Vet out, very little to see lameness wise, back not reactive to palpitation.
3 weeks ago he had a serious bronc in the ring shortly after I mounted. Enough was enough and he came in for full investigation and scintigraphy. He was noticeably lame in the hard lunge pen - LH and RF. Bone scan results showed a couple of little issues in hind limbs, hot navicular bones, question marks over stuff in his back and neck (definitely not kissing spines or wobblers though!), slight unevenness in the pelvis.
Today he came in for his work up. Still lame behind, but not really enough to block, esp with front lameness. Nerve blocks in front showed palmer foot pain in both feet, but more worryingly a second source of pain in the RF which we have yet to isolate (hitting more blocks tomorrow).
Basically, I have a horse who has done very little for the past year, at the time of this investigation he has pretty much been off work for 6 weeks so has essentially been field rested, but is lame in multiple limbs with additional issues elsewhere too. Vet has admitted he is a bit stumped as to how to treat him and guarded with prognosis anyway.
I am feeling sick and sad. I see too many horses come in with similar multiple issues, get poked, prodded and jabbed until the money runs out at which point they are retired to the field or PTS. Everything is looking very bleak right now.
Starting at the beginning: April last year my horse damaged both hind suspensory ligaments, xrays showed changes at the insertion site, prognosis guarded but generally positive. 3 months of truly hellish box rest and in hand walking, paddock rest for a further few weeks (he started ploughing through fences so we gave up!), field rest until October when I started to bring him ever so slowly back into work.
Since then he's come back into light work: hacking 2-3 times a week, light schooling 1-2 times a week. Recently however, I stopped being 100% happy with how he was going and felt there might again be an issue. Vet out, very little to see lameness wise, back not reactive to palpitation.
3 weeks ago he had a serious bronc in the ring shortly after I mounted. Enough was enough and he came in for full investigation and scintigraphy. He was noticeably lame in the hard lunge pen - LH and RF. Bone scan results showed a couple of little issues in hind limbs, hot navicular bones, question marks over stuff in his back and neck (definitely not kissing spines or wobblers though!), slight unevenness in the pelvis.
Today he came in for his work up. Still lame behind, but not really enough to block, esp with front lameness. Nerve blocks in front showed palmer foot pain in both feet, but more worryingly a second source of pain in the RF which we have yet to isolate (hitting more blocks tomorrow).
Basically, I have a horse who has done very little for the past year, at the time of this investigation he has pretty much been off work for 6 weeks so has essentially been field rested, but is lame in multiple limbs with additional issues elsewhere too. Vet has admitted he is a bit stumped as to how to treat him and guarded with prognosis anyway.
I am feeling sick and sad. I see too many horses come in with similar multiple issues, get poked, prodded and jabbed until the money runs out at which point they are retired to the field or PTS. Everything is looking very bleak right now.
I feel your pain! If he has pain in the front feet blocking to the palmer hoof... perhaps he's sore behind because he's been compensating? My horse was found to be lame in all four feet when he went in for a work up and whilst we MRI'd the front I didn't have the backs MRI'd because it would have used up so much of my insurance money. 