Medicating Coffin Joint

[MileyMouse]

A couple of weeks ago my 8 year old gelding suddenly went mildly (1/10) lame in his left fore.

I took him to the clinic for a work up and it was narrowed down to his foot (it was also found that he was slightly lame on left hind too but vet thinks that it is associated with front). He also had scans which indicated that the ddft and the outside collateral ligament were slightly larger the the right. The X-rays were all ok and showed no signs of arthritis etc.

I took him back last week for further nerve blocks. The vet blocked the coffin joint first and he was a lot sounder. This also ruled out the ddft being the problem. The vet wants him to come back to have the coffin joint medicated and then have some remedial farriery to see if it makes any difference and go from there.

I am a little wary of medicating joints as I know in some cases that initially there is an improvement but they do not last forever and are less and less effective each time you do them.

As he is still fairly young I don't want to make things worse, nor do I want him to stay lame ! Does anyone know if there are there any other treatments available ??

P.s Sorry it's a bit long !

 

[Max123]

Coffin Joints can take a long time to heal. It has only been a couple of weeks. I would think it is far too early to consider medicating it. Speak to your farrier who maybe able to give him more support while it heals itself. Give it plenty of time. It will be worth it in the long run.

 

[Joyous70]

My 13 year old has just been diagnosed with arthritis in his coffin joints, vet also wants to medicate the joints, to which my farrier replied he would rather try giving his heels a little more support (now he can see xrays, although feet on the whole are very well balanced just a little tinkering required) and try supplements etc before going down the expensive not 100% route of injections.

Give the remedial farriery a try first and maybe a little more time to heal before you try the injections? time can be a great healer sometimes

 

[sarahhowen]

Mileymouse, it sounds like you are going through the exact same thing we are! At the end of Jan indi, my horse, came up lame, after various consults with the vet, xrays, ultrascans etc we were referred to leahurst for a MRI which diagnosed moderate damage to the outside collateral ligament to the coffin joint, treatment was 12 weeks box rest with two hand walks daily which we are 9.5 weeks into, it was also suggested that we have the joint medicated but we had to wait until we were out of the accute phase and we had the injection done two weeks ago, we had no adverse effects and the only reason the vets do it is to help ease residual inflammation in the joint which can put pressure on the coffin joint/ligament.

We too have the special shoes although I'm not a huge fan of them we are exploring the possibilities of barefoot for my chappie