Navicular Symptoms

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StarcatcherWilliam

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Hi, my horse first went lame on 14 Jan and was diagnosed with navicular last week. Yesterday she had corrective shoeing carried out and Equidronate was administered. Vet has advised regular work in the form of 2x 20mins of light roadwork every day. The horse was so badly cripped this morning she could not walk out of stable. There is slight swelling and heat in the fetlock joint and hoof. Are these "normal" symptoms you would associate with navicular? Vet says it's because the sole of the foot was badly bruised and has today given me bute. I intend to see how she is on Monday and if she is no better I will be asking for a second opinion, but in the meantime I wanted to know about other people's experience of navicular. Thanks.
 
I would take those shoes off and get it on a natural anti inflammatory. Look at Rockley Farm website http://www.rockleyfarm.co.uk and also the Phoenix Horse website (Barefoot) http://phoenixhorse.myfastforum.org. Also look at the Turmeric Users FB page ,there is a lot of good information on there. There are a couple of good FB groups all about Bare Foot.

I have a mare that has Navicular ( diagnosed in May 2012) and have been down the Vet ,drugs and remedial shoeing and it has not helped at all. Since using Turmeric and going Barefoot she has improved a great deal.
 
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Is she just lame in one foot? Any chance it could actually be an undiagnosed abscess causing the lameness rather than navicular?
 
You say the vet diagnosed navicular, how was this done? The term navicular is such a broad generalisation for a start, and proper diagnosis of the various elements that can contribute, can only really be done with an MRI.
Barely able to walk out of the stable is serious, no wonder you are worried. If it is down to bruising, fair enough, but how does the vet say this relates to navicular?
 
Definitely should not be lame, rest horse and ring vet. Mine was navicular diagnosis good in remedial shoes and tildren for a while. My horse at Rockley Farm now as eventually the shoes stop helping.
 
I thought injecting the joints was quite risky in terms of infection, I'm surprised the vet just diagnosed bute without another look. I've been down this route and I remember "corrective" shoeing that eventually led me to going barefoot. I would suggest you take a look at Rockley's web site, change the diet appropriately so when you want to get the shoes off the horse is prepared, and go with your own gut instinct. In the mean time badger that vet to look again in case the injection was the problem. Heat and swelling do not sound like bruising of the sole to me.
 
ITPersonnage said:
I thought injecting the joints was quite risky in terms of infection, I'm surprised the vet just diagnosed bute without another look. I've been down this route and I remember "corrective" shoeing that eventually led me to going barefoot. I would suggest you take a look at Rockley's web site, change the diet appropriately so when you want to get the shoes off the horse is prepared, and go with your own gut instinct. In the mean time badger that vet to look again in case the injection was the problem. Heat and swelling do not sound like bruising of the sole to me.
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She didn't have the joint injected. She had Equidronate (Tildren) on a drip. Believe me, vet is being badgered. Daily!! I am in such a state about the whole thing! Not sure how I'm expected to exercise a horse when it is too lame to even get out the stable! :'(
 
AnShanDan said:
You say the vet diagnosed navicular, how was this done? The term navicular is such a broad generalisation for a start, and proper diagnosis of the various elements that can contribute, can only really be done with an MRI.
Barely able to walk out of the stable is serious, no wonder you are worried. If it is down to bruising, fair enough, but how does the vet say this relates to navicular?
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Navicular was diagnosed with X-Rays. I really want her to have an MRI but vet says there's no point!! He says the bruising is caused by poor shoeing job by my farrier when he initially did remedial shoes. His shoes have been taken off and replaced by vet's farrier. If she is no better on Monday I am going to tell my insurance company I want a second opinion and MRI. My fear is that there is a lot of involvement with the soft tissues - but would this cause heat and swelling in fetlock?!!
 
Mine was diagnosed with xrays and vet told me people say navic syndrome them using it to cover some lameness cant really explain but if navic disease then its def navic disease of the bone that you can see by xray. He had not swelling as you describe and is fine shod on herbs after some tildren as long as ground not hard.

He has never been that lame and I would wonder is it an abcess or something else.
 
jam14 said:
Mine was diagnosed with xrays and vet told me people say navic syndrome them using it to cover some lameness cant really explain but if navic disease then its def navic disease of the bone that you can see by xray. He had not swelling as you describe and is fine shod on herbs after some tildren as long as ground not hard.

He has never been that lame and I would wonder is it an abcess or something else.
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Your vet should have told you that lameness correlates very poorly indeed with damage/changes seen to the navicular bone on x Ray. And that almost all for lame horses are found on MRI to have soft tissue injuries that are causing the lameness. Once those soft tissue injuries are fixed, the lameness goes even though the bone damage is still there.

It is also not the case that navicular disease is progressive, or that the navicular bone cannot heal. These are things we have always been told, which we now have x rays to disprove.
 
OP I have never seen or heard of navicular disease causing swelling higher in the leg, and I've had five with it myself and seen many others.
 
StarcatcherWilliam said:
Navicular was diagnosed with X-Rays. I really want her to have an MRI but vet says there's no point!! He says the bruising is caused by poor shoeing job by my farrier when he initially did remedial shoes. His shoes have been taken off and replaced by vet's farrier. If she is no better on Monday I am going to tell my insurance company I want a second opinion and MRI. My fear is that there is a lot of involvement with the soft tissues - but would this cause heat and swelling in fetlock?!!
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Poor horse :(

I can't say what is the cause of the heat and swelling, but bad bruising in the foot is very painful and can make the lower leg swell.

If your horse in insured, I'd be tempted to get an MRI done. It is the only way to know what is wrong. Diagnosing nav. from x rays is outdated, many horses would show some degeneration of the bone, with no symptoms and equally, many horses have symptoms with no changes to the bone on x ray (I've got one).
 
Seconding cptrayes and AnShaDan here, the x-rays aren't necessarily reliable. I have one with perfect hoof x-rays, no sign of changes, who has still been diagnosed with navicular. She's not consistently lame, but when she has a flare-up she does sometimes get inflammation up both front legs. This said, I've had two vet practices admit she's one of the weirder cases they've treated ;-)
 
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