Laminitis - your experiences please!

[kezza24]

So my 8 year old mare, v good doer has moved onto summer grazing fields, and within a week started looking pottery. Extremely sore on stoney ground. She is barefoot (had shoes taken off beginning of last year as I was pregnant and so not riding her. Have started some riding since November but so little that she was coping ok without shoes). Initally put the footy behaviousdown to having just had a trim, but on saturday, 10 days after trim she was noticeably worse not better. Took her off grass all together, and got vet out monday. Vet confirmed low grade laminitis (pulse in all four feet). Said happy that doesn't need xrays right now, bute and sedalin for a week. No grass and v limited diet for a month.she is on soft shavings bed. Already looking a lot more comfortable and better pulse (although appreciate thay might just be the bute atm) then after a month vet said get bar shoes on to support and exercise her (providing we have seen suitable improvemnt) so my main question is about the shoes.... I am reading conflicting advice about this for lami... to do any real work my mare does like to be shod anyway, only just coping with v short hacks walking on road once or twice a week. Will bar shoes be ok to put on after a month? To support for exercise not as a treatment for the lami?

 

[vmac66]

My mare was shod all round when she had laminitis last spring, she would wear her feet out very quickly so barefoot wasn't an option.
Shoes were taken off during the laminitis and recovery period. My farrier suggested hoof boots instead of shoes for hacking.
Horse has been wearing Scoot boots for nearly a year now and I think they are great.

Her feet are looking good, also being barefoot
if she does go footy I will know much quicker than with shoes.

 

[be positive]

I would be wary about putting any type of bar shoe on as they really need doing more frequently, ideally 4 weeks, than normal shoes as they must remain balanced if they are not going to do more harm than good, I would look into boots for exercise and let her grow the foot she needs to support herself.
Having dealt with low grade laminitis a few times I prefer to keep them unshod so you can really monitor them and catch it before it becomes serious.

 

[Pinkvboots]

I also would not go down the bar shoe route not had good experiences with them in the past, it's quite an old fashioned way of dealing with laminitis now I feel now anyway, seen as you caught the laminitis early and it's a low grade case I would just see if you can use boots and pads for a while and then when you want to ride again just shoe normally, I think I would want the feet xrayed any way for my own piece of mind at least you know that way, it's also useful for your farrier to have those to go by when she does need the shoes on.

 

[sherry90]

I’d keep the shoes off and put boots on when the mare is more comfortable for gentle exercise. Is she overweight? I had xrays done last year on my very low grade lami boy (only lame on the soft on a circle and very very mildly lame trotting on the straight hard) he got the weight off and was ok but I was glad to have the xrays to guide how I progressed him.

 

[windand rain]

She should be on box rest until she is sound off drugs for 30 days get her weight down and once she is completely better start slowly. Make sure her diet contains as much fibre as she can have and has a low sugar low starch content preferrably below 5% combined. Soak her hay and wash well after soaking a couple of hours should do but make sure it is well rinsed off or it will have been sitting in sugar for hours. I wouldnt shoe either as it masks some of the pain and should be avoided if at all possible. Once fully recovered you have to treat her as a chronic lamimitic so restricted grass, lots of exercise and if she loses too much weight oil based food rather than any extra sugar or starch. Sorry to say is is lifelong management from now on in. I have researched all the options and studied laminitis for a long time since one of mine had it as a 3 year old He has been micro managed by researched thinking for the last 12 years and is as sound as a pound and has been for 9 years He did succumb twice but as soon as he was allowed to drop a huge amount of weight in winter and lived on a track in summer he has been fine. The track which is grass has been a god send it is about 15 ft wide and about 100 meters long in a u shape water at the end of one leg food and any added grass at the other they have to move around to eat and drink

 

[holeymoley]

Why is the vet wanting bar shoes on? If there’s been no changes to the inside of the hoof then there is no need for bar shoes unless her feet are a mess? The shoe will only mask any sensitivity she may have and give a false sense of being ‘over it’.

I’m not anti- shoe, I used heartbars with great results during rotational laminitis and still use conventional shoes.