Misdiagnosis resulting in PTS. Should I pay bill??

2horsesnomoney said:
as a few people have said mistakes do happen and without D. Pulses laminitis would not be not be first on the list of differentials. to be able to "sue" or make a complaint about this practice/ vet you would need to prove they were negligent ie. lateral x-ray showing pedal bone rotation but if no rotation was present just a few days before i dont think there is much you can do. I would ask to see the x-rays taken originally and if they refuse to give them to you speak to the mri practice i would think they have a copy. Just to clarify if rotation was present or not. Did the vet do nerve blocks or anything ? i find it a bit odd to confuse navicular and laminitis as the pain is a oppoiste ends of the foot giving differant foot flight and landing position.
either way i am sorry for your loss,
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Yes she was nerve blocked (although the initial lameness assessment was done without a shoe on her bad foot). He also anaethetised the navicular bursa at a much later date and then anaethetised either side of the fetlock joint so that we could "get her moving" to help with the lymphangitis. It was all a catalogue of errors but I accept the fact that I can't make a complaint and will just have to move on.
 
Goldenstar said:
Surely there's a middle way .
If this happened to me I would go to my vets and say I am not happy xy and z happened and I do not wish to pay all this bill as I feel the service you gave was sub standard .
I am willing to pay x of the bill .
Then see what they do .
Then if they choose to take you to court to get the money the boots on the other foot and they are the ones suing the heartbroken owner of a horse they failed to treat properly .
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"Funnily" enough I have just received the MRI report from the 2nd vet and a statement from my vet. I will be going through the vets bill and seeing what I think should and shouldn't be paid. Thanks.
 
You can certainly complain to the practise .
You don't need to suffer and pay up in silence .
I think in the first place I would write to the senior partner or the practice manager whichever is the most appropriate depending on the size of practise .
 
OP just to say that the prognosis of acute laminitis in big horses is very poor indeed. I was told this from the outset by the vet with my mare - she was 16.3hh medium weight with no fat on her, but the sheer weight of a big horse does not assist the healing required in laminitis cases. My mare had both rotation and sinkage in both fronts, one worse than the other. My husband is a farrier so as well as putty pads from early on she was shod with glue on sole support shoes and these could not save her. She spent 3.5 months on box rest and the vet then sadly called time with the sole necrosis. Laminitis is a hateful condition.
 
YasandCrystal said:
OP just to say that the prognosis of acute laminitis in big horses is very poor indeed. I was told this from the outset by the vet with my mare - she was 16.3hh medium weight with no fat on her, but the sheer weight of a big horse does not assist the healing required in laminitis cases. My mare had both rotation and sinkage in both fronts, one worse than the other. My husband is a farrier so as well as putty pads from early on she was shod with glue on sole support shoes and these could not save her. She spent 3.5 months on box rest and the vet then sadly called time with the sole necrosis. Laminitis is a hateful condition.
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That's exactly what the second vet said too. My mare was 17.2hh and although she was a relatively lightweight build and not overweight, her weight alone would have made rehabilitation impossible. Very different from a 11hh pony. She had a glue shoe on her bad foot, but this was only due to the fact that the vet still thought it was an abscess and wanted that to heal before attempting to get her sound from the non-existent navicular. She had previously had three shoes put on the bad foot with various farriers and vet di##ing around, which won't have helped her condition. YasandCrystal, can I ask what caused the laminitis in your mare - did you ever find out?
 
StarcatcherWilliam said:
That's exactly what the second vet said too. My mare was 17.2hh and although she was a relatively lightweight build and not overweight, her weight alone would have made rehabilitation impossible. Very different from a 11hh pony. She had a glue shoe on her bad foot, but this was only due to the fact that the vet still thought it was an abscess and wanted that to heal before attempting to get her sound from the non-existent navicular. She had previously had three shoes put on the bad foot with various farriers and vet di##ing around, which won't have helped her condition. YasandCrystal, can I ask what caused the laminitis in your mare - did you ever find out?
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The vet tested for cushings/EMS - all negative. She was going to do the starve test but did not believe that would yield a different result. I had tried to transition to barefoot in front with my mare - she was bf behind for a long while, but I would go as far to say that 90% of horses or higher can cope bf behind as it;'s natural for horses to be on the forehand. She struggled bf in front and I used Boa boots on her to hack out. I decided to go back to shoes as she was struggling. Now some may say that she had something going on metabolically to be struggling which could of course be true. It could also be that my mare (she was 17 years old) could have been suffering due to arthritic changes in her feet/limbs and this bf transition dicomfort just proved too much on top of that - who knows.
We had a new friend's rescue nervous TB mare on grass livery and my mare seemed to really bond with her although they were in separate paddocks they grazed alongside each other. I took the decision to turn them out together and the new mare worried and pushed my mare about. It was then she became very footsore. We shod her and things did not mprove.
Again one could interpret the TB pushing my mare about that the TB sensed she was having a laminitic episode (never had one before) and horses try to help out by moving the affected horse about to rid their body of the toxins. I do think that the TB aggravated an already sore horse's feet and did not help the condition should we say.

I have loads of regrets - namely why the hell I decided to try and go bf wiith my mare in the first place and secondly turning her out with the TB mare. The TB mare went onto push my 10hh companion pony about constantly herding him - so I do think she aggravated the situation.

My mare was the perfect weight - she was on a low sugar no cereal high fibre diet. She was on a 'track' system at my own paddocks, so it shouldn't have happened.
 
The one question I would ask was if you were warned of the laminitis risk with the steroids.
 
We had a similar experience with a vet years ago. We didn't pursue it legally as I was young and stupid and they "moved on" very quickly to another practice, although a little birdy did tell me there had been several complaints of misdiagnosis and general bad attitude.
This vet diagnosed my horse with a damaged check ligament, even scanned it after 6 weeks and told me it was healing well! NEVER did this vet see the horse out the stable, walk or trot up. I requested a 2nd opinion from the senior vet and after further investigation it was discovered the ligaments in her feet had given up.
I hate the fact it was missed for so long but so grateful the ground was soft for her last 2 months, she was sound on soft surfaces and crippled on anything hard.
First vet turned up at the yard the day after my horse was pts to treat someone elses horse, asked how my mare was getting on. My response wasn't particularly polite. The yard owner also banned her from coming back.
I was only 17 at the time but that experience taught me how to tactfully throw my toys out the pram to get what I want from the people treating my animals.

I'm sorry for whats happened to your horse, it's a truly heartbreaking situation to be in, without the added complications. Please do what others have advised and go through every report, xray etc you have and seek legal advice.
I've always been of the opinion that we're only human and can make mistakes, however if a vet doesn't know what's wrong they should have the balls to say it and refer you to someone who has the expertise to look further and not just blindly guess.
 
StarcatcherWilliam said:
What an insensitive comment by the vet re the thesis. I did have something similar from my farrier, asking if he could take pictures of the special shoe he had made because it had been such "good fun" making it. Turns out his shoe was totally crap and his trimming (or lack of) was appalling, but that is a whole different can of worms which I won't be opening. If I ever feel ready to have another horse and at the moment I don't think I will, I will certainly be changing my vet and farrier. That is one big thing I have learnt from this sorry mess. My ex-farrier is one of the highest qualified farriers in the country and he can't trim a horse's feet properly. My inexperience coupled with the fact that I trusted him purely because of his qualifications resulted in bad feet which undoubtedly contributed to the horse's unfortunate condition.
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These professionals are very unprofessional at times in what they say. Sometimes they look at their patient as a commodity wheras with us there is a lot of personal involvement and committment and emotional input that has gone into looking after and nurturing our horse and something that professionals tend to forget at times which can make them insensitive as our two stories show.

i know not all professionals are like this but a lot of them don't appear to understand how emotionally effected we can be by the loss of our horse. I hope you have had appropriate support from those close to you. It was extremely difficult for me to move on after losing Rommy due in part to the suffering undergone by my horse due to the misdiagnosis and the lack of apology afterwards. When horses are flight animals and can't even manage to walk in a straight line without looking like they will fall over if must be very frightening and worrying for them and they must feel extremely vulnerable - I am guessing Rommy suffered great anguish during these days and weeks of misdiagnosis (as did I).

If you want feel free to PM me. I hope you sort things out to your satisfaction and are able to move on in time. Thinking of you xx
 
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