Navicula,

[keekee]

Dose anyone know much about it? what is the real cause???
My old boy had it a few years ago and had to be put down after 2yr of being on bute and navalox cause he became amune to medication and always stood with fore leg pointing was the kindest thing we could do.

 

[Box_Of_Frogs]

Hi keekee. Not an expert but my oldie also had severe probs with it and had to be pts when he started losing weight dramatically and was getting bullied in the field and was obviously in a lot of pain. My uderstanding is that it's a syndrome rather than a specific disease, ie it involves almost all of the structures in the foot. And of course, the sheer weight of a horse will make this worse. I think the navicular bone starts to change due to recurring damage and stress and all the structures get sharp edges and weakened and the tendons that should glide smoothly over them begin to catch and hurt and then they get damaged too and sadly it can pretty much be downhill from there. Having said that, there are some stories out there of amazing recoveries and I guess it's worth looking into all sorts like magnetic therapy, homeopathy, acupuncture etc to support the horse. But sadly when my boy had his definitive diagnosis (he had been bi-laterally lame on his front feet for months) I spoke to a company claiming wonderful things for magnetic wraps etc but the sales rep was brutally honest that they could help for sprains and stuff but she said save your money, it can't help such an advanced stage. So sad - so helpless.

 

[keekee]

How sad your experiance sounds similar to mine we were contemplating sending him to america if they had a mirical cure sounds a bit extream i know but we didnt look into cost just the opp but they arnt actually much ahead of us in that department and didnt really help much my poor boy jack we had rescued him so he had a few good years dear ol boy.

 

[hussar]

My older Arab was diagnosed with bilateral navicular at age 14 - after 8 years of being a serious endurance horse. We tried Navilox and Tildren but with no success. He's now on half a bute a day and remedial shoes - he's rideable but not competable. He seems perfectly happy and will bomb around the field with his friends. Where the problem is most obvious is in trot on hard surfaces - so we don't do that! On a forgiving surface he can go straight from walk to flat-out in a split second ...

 

[Orangehorse]

Look on barefoot horse websites for case studies about recovery from navicular.

If it is too advanced there is probably little to be done, but there have been some amazing results. One horse had been retired from hunting, and then there was a picture of him in H & H out hunting again, barefoot.

 

[zelli]

The thing is keekee, the real cause is not known. There are several theories (I think 5 in total), im not sure I can remember them all but here goes....

Degeneration of the navicular bone, possibly due to concussion or lack of circulation. Something to do with the navicular bursa (cant remember what...) but i think it shrinks, making it inactive and therfore causing the tendons to rub against the bones casuing pain. I think another theory is that the tendons constrict, but i might be making that up too! and thats about as far as my memory goes! However, the newest thought is that its probably a mixture of all of the theories, and therefore it has now become navicular syndrome as opposed to the old title of navicular disease.

For more information, a very good book available is 'navicular syndrome explained' found on amazon here http://www.amazon.co.uk/Navicular-Syndro...8226&sr=1-1

The interesting thing is, studies into wild horses skeletons that were found show no signs of navicular syndrome... (well i thought it was anyway!

)

 

[Dressagebabe]

Bad foot shape is one of the major causes of Navicular, I am going to put my neck on the line here and say that Farriers have a big part in causing Navicular. Low or collapsed heels, too long at the toe etc. We bought a 4yrs old with Navicular changes (this is not quite navicular but is heading that way if foot shape doesn't improve) My husband is a Vet so we decided to take a risk buying the horse even though we found the changes on x-ray prior to buying him. He had dreadful foot shape which the owner produced photo's before he had a farrier (good old Mother natures way of trimming) which looked very good indeed then photo's from 2yrs of farriered feet and the difference was unbelievable. I am very fortunate that my farrier is superb and only does remedial 2nd opinion work but as a family friend he has always shod my horses regardless so when we showed him our new purchase he was determined to sort his feet for me, 1yr down the line and the navicular changes had gone!!! along with the side bone he also came with - this had re absorbed. 10yrs down the line he is now 14 and training at advanced level in dressage with the best feet ever. So it is very important that your farrier takes care with the foot shape & the degree angles of the heels (no less that 45° & no greater than 55°) I hope this gives some people confidence to make sure their farrier is doing a good job.