Lameness investigation - ideas of cost please

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sonjafoers

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I posted a few weeks ago about my mare who was diagnosed with severe spine degeneration and was retired with the dilemma of pts.

I've now had a 2nd opinion based purely on the x rays and the 2nd vet hasn't concurred with the first and has suggested I start riding her again for a few weeks and then he will do lameness investigations.

I am new to this but from what I can make out he will assess her gait & movement and then block areas to find out the area/areas of pain and work from there.

Can anyone shed some light on costs for me please? I know it's a fairly open ended question but I'm interested in a rough idea of costs for the above work which will include an overnight stay.

I understand that once they find the problem I will incur a lot more costs but can anyone give me a ball park figure just for the above. I didn't renew her insurance this year so am working out how long I can live on bread and water ;)
 
I would be planning for £1000, but it depends totally on how quickly and easily they find answers.
Then diagnosics more X-rays perhaps MRI . MRI seems to be £800 to£1200 perhaps diagnosic ultrasound .
Then treatment who knows. I would ask for a estimate for the diagnosics .
 
Yikes goldenstar, I've already spent £700ish on the initial x rays which don't really seem to be much use. I will ask the vet for an estimate but from past experience from other vets they aren't always accurate.

So are you saying something in the region of £1,000 for analysis, blocking of areas etc and then another approx £1,000 if they decide to do an MRI?

My vet did mention a scintillograph (?) for any areas of concern which I'm assuming is like an x ray - that sounds expensive too :(
 
Last month, I dropped off in the morning, and picked up in the afternoon, so billed for one day stabling, nerve blocks and xrays lunging work up, shoe removal, add on Danilon for 2 weeks all in cost me about £550.00 after 10% off for immediate payment, £23.00 inc vat was to remove a shoe which my farrier said must have took less than 30 seconds as he complained about how it had obviously just been pulled off.

If your having overnight stay and more work it's gonna be expensive, I had to pay my farrier as well for a few trips for special shoeing with resin infills etc, I am still flinching from it all as I didn't claim on my insurance.
 
That didn't sound too bad to me Pedantic, I wouldn't be too upset if mine was roughly that plus an overnight stay but I don't think it will be.

Having just been charged over £700 for a lunge, trot up and x rays - roughly 2 hours in all - I'm thinking the initial 2 days for the 2nd opinion is going to cost a LOT.

And that's just the start I guess :(
 
This is a really difficult situation the diagnosics can cost a fortune .
Scintingraphy is bone scanning good for pin pointing area of worry and often used for backs they might then want to follow is up with MRI to look at that area .
It really is how long is a piece of string.
 
Sonjafoers... I am so glad to see this post that you went ahead and got a second opinion and they seem to be a bit more open minded :)
When I took my mare for a lameness investigation it came to about 1k. This was a days stabling, trot up, nerve blocks, X-rays, sedation, cortisone and another injection into the joint (if I remember rightly) 100 sachets of bute and supplements.... This that was about all of it?

I would just say to budget for the max as they do like to add costs on where they can!

I wish you ever luck with your horse and please keep us posted :-D
 
baker190 thank you for your lovely post. I was so upset initially and found it hard to believe that my horse was an 8 on a pain scale of 1-10 because she just didn't show it. I was struggling to come to terms with it when she was happily cavorting around the field.

I don't want to say too much on here because you never know who reads your posts but the 2nd vet is actually my old vet who knows my horse well, but he moved way out of area so I had to change vets when he left. He has shed a different light on the situation for me, and even though he can't diagnose anything without seeing her he has said from what he can see on the x rays do not consider any serious actions and definitely do not consider pts until investigated further. I'm so glad I decided to contact him and even if he does find something terrible and she's retired at least I will trust the decision. Also it has given me a few weeks of riding her and we're having fun on every ride knowing it could be the last rides together. I'm letting her get away with a few things because of this and she's having a whale of a time!

To be honest it doesn't really matter what the cost is, we have some money, credit cards and my husband has said he will sell his beloved motorbike if we have to so regardless of cost we will cover every angle, I'm just trying to work out what I need to find initially.

Goldenstar thank you for your info, I think it will be a long process but I just wasn't sure what the process is. I will ask the vet to explain everything when I get up there but do you think it could be gait anaylsis, blocking, scintigraph, MRI? Is that the normal way things go?

I guess from there it could go a number of ways but I'm just not sure what to expect once I've left her up there.
 
I had this recently.

Was given an estimate when I got there and signed for £500 - £1500.

It really depends on what they find. They start at the bottom and work up. If he clearly nerve blocks to the foot then initial investigations may not cost too much but they may suggest an MRI as Ultrasounds are limited and Xrays only show bones but not soft tissue in the foot.

Assuming they find nothing at this stage they work up the leg, xraying, ultrasounding and nerve blocking.

We got to the knee and found nothing that responded to nerve blocks and at that point had to resort to scintigraphy (day 2). At this point they located the issue to the shoulder and x rays showed an incredibly rare bone cyst.

Had to stay until he was no longer radioactive and a weekend in the middle meant an extra 2 days livery.

Bill in the end was just over £2000 :( Luckily I was insured, especially as the only treatment was to operate so the whole thing has pushed it close to the limit.

Just a thought, I have heard people say good things about thermal imaging as a way of picking up hot spots for further investigation and it is relatively cheap.
 
Criso sorry to hear about your boy, it's so upsetting isn't it. I hope he recovers well.

My problem area is the back so we won't be nerve blocking the foot area and probably not the limbs.

I've already had x rays done by the initial vet who saw her ( I think he took 26 x rays, 2 of which were hocks ) so hopefully my 2nd opinion vet will use what he can of those. As I paid roughly £700 for these x rays I really hope I don't have to pay for many more as I would be duplicating cost. In his email to me my 2nd vet said after gait analysis he would block off certain areas of the back to try and narrow down any areas that are causing pain and then possibly use scintigraphy, so although a different area it sounds very similar to your situation.

Was your £2,000 the total cost or was that the cost for investigation and then the operation was an additional cost?

I will ask about the thermal imaging as somebody else mentioned this to me earlier.
 
Just the investigation, haven't had the bill for the op yet but they start at about £2500

The total payout for vets fees on insurance is £5000 and with a follow up visit to ultrasound and/or xray at 8 weeks to assess how well it's gone I will be up there.
 
When I had vet out to my yard to do work up, nerve blocks (1 leg only) and also ultrasound scan, with then injection into tendon sheath (after diagnosis) and the associated bits & bobs of epicaine, bandage & bute etc etc this cost a total of approx £500. Vet was with me around 2 hours & popped back the day after (FOC) when passing to see if all was ok.

Would have been a lot more if I had taken BF over for the day as currently dont have own transport.
I carried out the follow up work etc & vet didnt need to return till 3 months later as we discussed updates on progress via email & phone.

Final follow up appt (with shared visit with lovely livery) was just under £64.00

If we had gone down the op route, then we were looking at costings around £2k for the op & then extra ££'s for the aftercare etc.

Good luck in how things go.

Edited to add - just seen you have mentioned its more likely to be back, so please discard my post!:o
 
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That's just frightened me criso as mine could well be very similar. I suppose I knew deep down I'd be looking at about £5,000 if she needs an op but seeing it in black and white is a bit scary!

Thank you for posting though, I do need to know realistic costs so it's been a great help.
 
Thanks anyway Fuzzy Furry!

I wish I could do a yard visit as I know it would keep costs down but she does have to stay in and my vet is over 3 hours away so it's not possible.
 
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. It does sound in your case as they have more of an idea of where it is so maybe the work up won't be so expensive.
With legs they always start at the bottom as that's where most of the problems are so it took a while to reach the shoulder and there's alot of structures to eliminate in the leg.

Operations on the other hand tend to be expensive.
 
Iv had 2 horses with unknown lameness problems before and each time iv used thermal imaging as a start point and gone from there. Both cases the thermal imaging was right. The first was actually kissing spine but the vets wanted to do a lameness workout, nerve block etc then start x raying but I booked thermal imaging which showed one bad area in the whole horse ( back at mid way) so I booked the horse in for x ray and job done. Cheap and problem found. Horse went on well with injections.
2nd again unknown lameness so I called out thermal again ( always my 1st point off call now in anything not simple) and the only area showing a hot spot was teeth!! Even though they had been done and horse bucking big time every time I rode but showed no discomfort in his mouth. Tbh we were looking more towards back etc even though back was checked, saddle checked and teeth checked. Vet wanted to start looking into it but I said no thermal imaging first. Again teeth showed up bright Red and don't think I was believed when I said I had them done. He was a vet who done the thermal both times so he done the teeth there and then and after a few days off lunging I was back on board with no more bucks.

I know there is a lot off un certently ( spelling) about thermal and temp controlled rooms etc and if it's so good why don't all the top vets use it etc BUT it's worked for me both times and my horse with the teeth could off run into thousands trying to find the problem when £80 thermal found it in under 5 mins.
 
Interesting thatsmygirl, I'm definitely going to speak to my vet about it before I go and see what he says. It has been mentioned to me a few times now so it's worth looking into further.
 
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