My mare 15 months after her kissing spine op

TicTac

TicTac

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Here is a little video I took of her yesterday being ridden by a friend of mine as I wanted to see how she looks.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pT-uJnybR40&context=C30afac6ADOEgsToPDskJNB-JUqdKcstB0dnVhK7ye


Through out the whole operation, rehab and being ridden again she has been an absolute star and I definitely have a much happier horse under saddle. In september 2010 she had 4 dorsal spinous process removed in a standing op.

I started to ride her again at the end of January 2011 and spent all the summer just quietly hacking her around the country side. We did have a bit of a setback in May when she went lame in one front leg. No bony changes were noted on the xrays so with the vets permission and slight shoeing adjustments I just kept on hacking her and she came good.

I started to school her in October 2011 and she came on well but I found that she wasn't completely happy to canter in a more rounded frame. She would keep changing legs in an effort to balance herself. so I have just gone back to cantering her slightly out of the saddle in an effort to help her build strenght and confidence.

There is hope for horses like mine who originally had 7 impinging vertabrae. Let me know your opinions please :-)

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thats great news ---very pleased for you both

ours had her op in july 2011 and we have just got back to riding her this month as she had other issues aswell as the KS so left her a little longer to chill out

she had 3 removed (you may of seen my earlier posts on her)

we have also decided to quietly hack her out and build her up over the summer slowly

she also as been a star throughout the all process and does feel more relaxed in herself --i think she is actually enjoying being back ridden and going for little walks around the country

i hope all keeps going well for you both
 
Its lovely to hear a happy ending to such a horrible condition.

My mare has kissing spine affecting 3 vertebrae just behind her saddle, she was diagnosed last february and had cortisone injections, touch wood she hasn't needed them since the physio comes and sees her every 6 weeks and she spends a ridiculous amount of time on the pessoa riding long and low, I dread the thought of her having to go through an op she is only 5 bless her.
 
Thank you for sharing. She looks fabulous!

My mare had the standing surgery on 7th Spet 2011 and we are still in the rehab stage with her getting her strong enough to ride. We're two rein lunging and up to walk, trot and canter.

How did you know your mare was ready to be ridden? Did you notice many behavioural changes? My mare was never the most trusting and whilst with me and people she knows she has become more loving, she is much more wary of strangers than she was before the surgery. She is muscling up well with the rehab though and holding her weight for the first winter.

We had 3 dorsal processes removed and her hopefull she will return to her previous low level dressage competing.

How often do you keep your mare in work to keep her top line strong? Do you warm her up inhand before you work her? Did you continue with rehab work once she was back under saddle?

Sorry for the 100's of questions - just interested as to how others have coped with this.

The vet has asked me to keep a diary of our rehab, and I've been posting it online to get others feedback as well as recording her working once a week - we're going to do a little video and a book with pictures and the diary for the hospital and my vets for them to share with other owners thinking about the surgery - if you are interested in reading it so far its here:
http://talkingofhorses.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2158


xx
 
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What a fabulous looking mare! I am so pleased you have had so much success. My boy is just chilling at the moment after having 5 processes removed mid Nov 2011. He is very full of himself when turned out and appears to move a lot more freely. I start long lining him middle of next month.
 
Well done with your rehab she looks great! Can i ask what you had to do with her post op? My lovely youngster has recently been diagnosed with 3 KS processes. I have had his back medicated about 4 weeks ago and i am waiting for the insurance company to give me the go ahead before he can go and have the op. i am pretty nervous as i haven't owned a horse that has had to have surgery before so i'm not sure what to expect. Any info gratefully received.
 
Thank you for your lovely comments. Brief synopsis.........

After an initial lunging period I re-backed my mare which was very easy and when I got back on and I can honestly say she pricked her ears as if to say, good, we are doing something at last. She was a star and showed no objections whatsoever. I continued to lunge her periodically through the summer of 2011 together with plenty of hacking in walk and trot. She did have a mild lameness issue in may which required a short period of rest but x-rays revealed nothing significant so I kept her going on 1 bute a day and she is fine now.

I started to incorporate longer periods of canter and schooling under saddle in october 2011. A year after her op and now she is back to her normal level of work again. I chose to take her re-hab slowly as I felt it was better for my horse and have found that she is a much happier horse now under saddle. Her main problem before the op was her very ' sour ' way of going. She just didn't want to do anything without pulling faces and canter was her biggest problem with constant leg changing and bunny bucking. BUT she never once objected to the saddle or me getting on or did anything violent in an effort to show her pain. That's why it took me quite a while to realise that she had a problem.

She does require a good warm up period as she can be a bit ' choppy' to start. I do lots of walking and trotting on a loose rein letting her stretch and not asking for a contact. I also do alot of lateral movements. mostly in walk and flexing. I would say that she does have her limitations and I accept this. But to be honest she is doing everything I ask of her and she is very good at letting me know if something isn't quite right. I do also do lots of in hand lateral work with her and she is getting very good now lol

My advice would be to take your time as it is a very invasive operation and Listen to your horse. Mine told me she was feeling good, 6 weeks after her op by jumping out of her restricted turnout paddock and back into her own field, so there she stayed!
 
Hi,

Interesting updates thanks - do you have any YouTube video of her (tictac) pre op to compare with, ie ridden or lunge?
Also when you say limitations what exactly do you mean by that ?

Lastly when you started the long reining / Pessoa work did you find the old symptoms still appeared to begin with? (such as girthiness, disunited, bucking (if she did before) choppy paces as some examples ? Also how was mare going down hill now and before??

Thanks and sorry for the question overload !
 
Hi Neednewhorse.

I may have a short video of her cantering which I will try and dig out.

When I first started to lunge her again she was definitely much more free-er and I just lunged her off of a headcollar for a week as I wanted her to find her own balance and not feel restricted in any way. She has never been what I call an active or big mover and in general her hock action is not brilliant. She has always bucked on the lunge but in all honesty that is her personality. The bucking pre op was relentless and sometimes she would just not give up. Now her bucking is definitely more from exhuberance and playfullness. If you met her you would see what I mean lol.

yes, at first on the lunge in the pessoa she would disunite on her right rein but as she has become stronger. She does not do it. I have noticed that I have to make sure that her saddles are a perfect fit and in one year they have both had to be adjusted twice. If she is slightly uncomfortable in the back it affects her ability to work happily.

I have got her to the stage in canter where her stride is longer than it used to be and she has had to re -learn how to go like this. The key to my mare is relaxation as by nature she is a bit of a stress head. When she gets uptight she reverts to her hoppy trot and choppy canter!

We do not have a lot of hills in our area but the little few we have didn't or do not affect her in any way. As previously mantioned, she has to have a good warm up routine which includes wearing an excercise blanket on colder days. she does seem to be stiffer in the colder weather.

She has been jumping 1metre on the lunge without any problems. I have yet to jump her with me on board as I;m not a particular fan of jumping, but my daughter said she will give her a try.

Her limitations I feel show it'self in the form of stiffness, mainly to the right. However for a 12 year old horse that had a major back operation, she is alot more supple than some establised horses I've ridden lately. and 15 mins of a few loose rein circles and serpentines soon sort her out!

I now need to ask her to work more up into a contact, especially in canter and I think it will take time, as this is the pace she worries about most. I am not able to ride much at the moment which doesn't help.

Hope this has answered a few of your questions but fire away if you have any more ;-)
 
Thanks for the update. The sysmptoms you describe about your mare being 'sour' sounds exactly the same as my youngster as well as the issues about being disunited and bucking. i am just waiting for the insurance company to give me the go ahead for the op. iwhs me luck. Can i ask who did your horses operation??
 
Best of luck for your horse Sharper. I'm sure everything will go well. My mare's operation was carried out by David Rutherford at Fellowes Farm Equine, Abbots Ripton Nr Huntingdon.

Where is your horse going?
 
Have tears in my eyes watching that.

I always assumed that KS was the end of the road for a horse with so many impingements. Seven! My goodness.

Well done totally delighted. I like a happy ending. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
 
Hi thanks TicTac, nice to know what others have been through!

Yeah, if you could find the vid, that would be brill. Its nice to compare the before and after!

Do you or have you done any pilates type work with her?

How was she on the pessoa for the first few times, did she explode at all? How did you cope? How were you able to keep her in walk/trot in the initial stages? Did you give sedalin?

It's just so nice to hear that she is in full work now, and carrying on happily and she looks like such a sweetheart too.
 
NeedNewHorse said:
Hi thanks TicTac, nice to know what others have been through!

Yeah, if you could find the vid, that would be brill. Its nice to compare the before and after!

Do you or have you done any pilates type work with her?

How was she on the pessoa for the first few times, did she explode at all? How did you cope? How were you able to keep her in walk/trot in the initial stages? Did you give sedalin?

It's just so nice to hear that she is in full work now, and carrying on happily and she looks like such a sweetheart too.
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I didn't know you could do pilates with horses! So no, I haven't lol but I do do a lot of in hand work with her on either long lines or in the classical position where I am at her head and I do walk pirouetes, shoulder in and travers etc.

Yes, she did explode when I first put her in the Pessoa and I did think, bloody hell I hope you dont damage yourself, however, she jumped out of her paddock 2 weeks into restricted turnout and would have a hooli in the field every now and again so I didn't worry that much. As I said before, she bucks and leaps for fun on the lunge, usually if I haven't done any work with her for a while but this is her personality. If she bucks and keeps disuniting then I know there is a problem other wise I dont worry and I never once had to sedate her for anything as one thing I didn't mention earlier was that she had a very nasty infection in her wound that lasted for a good 2 months. It took 3 different types of antibiotics before the vets fouond the right one and then I had to inject her every day for about 6 weeks with cobactan. I didn't even have to put a head collar on her to do them!

My mare had 3 weeks box rest at the equine clinic while the vets tried to get her infection under control with daily walk outs in hand, usually by me and she was just happy to graze. Then when she came home, another 2 weeks in the box allthough I rigged up an electric fenced area ( see photo) so that she could go out in there twice a day while I mucked out. This kept her very sane. I put my other horse next to her.

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Yes, when I first started to lunge her she was happy to stay in walk and trot and when I introduced canter she could keep it up for very long anyway so I had to build her up gradually of course.

I haven't been in a rush at any point to do too much with my horse and I feel she has appreciated this. She is out in the filed 24/7 from about march to October and she goes out every day for about 9 hours during the winter months so she is keeping herself moving. I had a chiropractor out today for a routine check up and he said all things considered she is in very good shape :-)
 
thanks. I am taking him to Rossdales, Newmarket on the 12th of Feb ready for his bone scan on the 13th. They have told me that they will operate the next day either standing up or lying down depending on what they find when they do the scan. I am more worried about the rehab side of things more than the operation itself as he prefers to be out in the field rather than in the box. oh well i guess i will just have to take each day at a time. Its such a shame as he is a really lovely horse.
 
sharper said:
thanks. I am taking him to Rossdales, Newmarket on the 12th of Feb ready for his bone scan on the 13th. They have told me that they will operate the next day either standing up or lying down depending on what they find when they do the scan. I am more worried about the rehab side of things more than the operation itself as he prefers to be out in the field rather than in the box. oh well i guess i will just have to take each day at a time. Its such a shame as he is a really lovely horse.
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I wish you and your boy the very best of luck with the op. My boy had KS in ten places and had the op at Rossdales too. They were excellent. The scar is very neat and I had no problems with it getting inflamed or infected despite it being a very long incision (he had 5 processes removed!).

One thing I would say is be careful with your insurance company re the bone scan. It often ends up costing £2k plus and if anything else is found on the scan that needs treatment, some insurance companies such as mine, will not separate out the conditions. For example, if the bone scan showed a problem in the spine (which you know about) but also say in the hocks, then you could face £2.5 k costs for the scan, plus around the same for the KS operation (more if he has to be put under general anaesthetic) and there would be no insurance allowance left for the other condition(s).

For this reason, Rossdales advised me to have the op done first, as we knew he had bad KS, and then see how he recovered. If he still was not right after rehab, then do a bone scan which would be treated as a separate issue and I would have a full new allowance for it. If that makes sense. You may not have that problem though as some insurance will just separate out the claim, no problem.
 
Thanks for the advice about the bone scan and the insurance i will keep this in mind when they give me the results. How long did your horse have to stay in the box for after the op and is he back to full work now??
 
Sharper. I thought my mare would be a nightmare on box rest but she was fine. Obviously be guided by your vets but if you can walk them out straight away then helps a great deal.

I dont know why people get so worried about the re-hab as it's not stressfull. My mare had 3 months complete paddock rest after her initial box rest period which was about 5 weeks ( but see my post above) and after that time she was ready to do something.

You know your horse and you will know what's best for it.
 
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