lameness..?

[BroadfordQueen]

some of you may of heard that my horse is lame, but only on a circle and on his left rein (although you can see it hurts him when he is just walking around the field). we got the vet out a few days ago and she said it was 7/10 lameness (which is quite bad), and she was convinced it was in the bottom of the foot (like 90% of lameness). so she nerve blocked the bottom of his foot bit by bit but he was still lame. vet couldnt believe it so came back yesterday to do it al over again incase nerve blocks hadnt worked, and did it more thoroughly, but he was still lame.

he is off to horse hospital in 2 weeks to nerve block his sholder/ elbow and have scans etc. but what is on my mind is that he has always been stiff on his left rein. he is only young (4-5 years) so its not like he has it in his head that he shouldnt bend on the left rein, we have always ridden him properly.

do you think the stiffness in his left rein could be caused by something in his sholder?? he has never been lame before and we have had lessons off respected dressage people who didnt notice any lameness or anything, but i was wondering if it could be possible?

also, if it is something in his sholder area, what could it be? a muscle tear or something?

any help would be muchly appriciated, thank you very much!

 

[piebaldsparkle]

Stiffness on left rein could definately be down to shoulder or elbow. Could be anything sprain/strained ligament/muscle. probably more likely to be a soft tissue injury than joint or bone. Young horse so could easliy have hurt himself messing about in the field. My mare started rearing, got physio out who said she was soo sore she must have fallen over (sometimes think it's quite good I can't see everything my mare does in the field, or I'd never turn her out again!!!). Try not to worry and just wait and see what the hospital can find. More often than not there is a positive outcome, the worst part really is not knowing. My friends 6yrs old mare had been intermittantly stiff/lame for nearly a year, vet finially referred her to equine hospital, where they found a muscle enzyme problem (simply resolved with a supplement).

 

[BroadfordQueen]

thank you very much for the help!

i was wondering, if he does have a sholder/ elbow problem like one of the ones you stated, how long-ish do you think he will be off work? i was going to hunt him but im not going to do that at all this year, but i would like to be able to do light schooling on him for next year. im asking because if he is out for a long time, we where thinking about buying a young horse to bring on over the winter.

 

[piebaldsparkle]

Really don't know, need to find out what the problems is before you can even thing about recovery time.