Navicular-worth doing an MRI? or go barefoot?

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Delta99

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My 6 yr old warmblood was diagnosed with navicular about 6 weeks ago. He was 1/10 lame in one leg and 2/10 in the other.
X rays show changes in the navicular bone.

He had steroid injections into the bursa and seemed to be improving initially but then went lame again.

I'm debating whether to take him for an MRI but my insurance will only cover half of the cost so I'm looking at spending about 1500 myself.

I understand that the MRI will give me a much better idea of where and how bad the problem actually is...

BUT : does this extra information give me more options in terms of treatment???

If there is DDFT problems, or impar ligament, is there actually anything that can be done, other than rest?


I'm also considering spending the 1500 pounds the MRI would cost me on sending the horse away for rehabilitation instead as I have heard a lot of success stories about going barefoot and Rockley farm seems to be getting a lot of recommendations on here.

Been going backwards and forewards with this (and can't get hold of the vets!!) so I'm just looking for opinions to help me make up my mind, please....

thanks a lot.
 
I remember once asking a vet if the £3,500 plus worth of scans etc they were proposing would substantially change the treatment options for a particular horse. The answer was 'no'.

So we didn't do the scans and the horse came sound within 48 hours without any form of pain relief. Lucky me, but I did know what we were dealing with.

That is not to say don't do the scans, but doing them or not doesn't preclude you taking your horse barefoot. (bare has relatively low cost implications when compared with the alternatives)

Depending on your resources you can do navicular rehab at home, with suitable advice from someone experienced. Or you can splash the cash and pay someone to do it for you.

Rockley is a great place to go and for those that can't do the rehab at home is an excellent choice.
 
Unfortunately, a diagnosis of navicular syndrome is often just a catch-all for when any other diagnosis isn't clear. Scientific, double blind tests have been carried out that prove a worrying problem with x-ray diagnosis of navicular. Take 50 lame horses and x-ray them and you'll find about 60% have changes in the navicular bone. Take 50 sound horses and x-ray them and you'll STILL find that about 50% show changes in the navicular bone. As your horse is so young it's worth trying other options first. One option is to turn him away for eg 3 months, see what happens. Another is indeed to go barefoot but barefoot tolerance varies from horse to horse. A course of bute sometimes helps as it would damp down any inflammation. Was your horse diagnosed at a specialst clinic? Worth getting a comprehensive lameness work up if not.

I'd strongly recommend "Navicular Syndrome Explained" by David W. Ramsey DVM for being relatively easy to read and understand. It's a few years old now but I don't think the diagnosis and/or treatment has changed that much.
 
Urmmm, this is a difficult one. If it is Impar then no nothing can done in terms of Treatment that you havent already done i.e injection into Bursa.

The one thing that is done is controlled walking but this again can only be done after a period of rest if it is the Impar as there will be extreme inflamation.

My own horse had MRI's & was diagnosed with Impar Lig with Adhesions to the DDFT. The MRI didnt help in Treatment but what i wanted was a full diagnosis so i knew what was really going on inside the foot.

Afterward i did take the horse Barefoot without the need for Rockley & the horse is now sound but hasnt come back into full work yet as i wanted him to have a full year off. We have just done lots of controlled walk work in straight lines for months & months. But he is T/O in now a big field & gallops, does sliding stops & genrally prats about & is totally sound now.
 
Interesting point Box-Of-Frogs, not trying to be awkward but do you have a link to that study? I would be very interested in reading it and it would be great to be able to reference.
 
Thanks for that.
The horse was diagnosed by a good vet, using a full lameness work up and I was told to work it very lightly in walk, with very little trot and canter in the school.

So, I walked it in hand initially, then rode it in walk for 20 mins about 4 times before starting to trot - once around the school on each rein.

Initially he seemed much improved (100% sound on one rein, showing a slightly shorter stride on the other rein but no obvious 'lame' steps) but after the second time I trotted him, I noticed huge swellings on the back of his short pastern and heat so have not done any more.

He is now proper lame again, both reins so I'm guessing it's more than just changes in the bone.

My concern really is that I don't want to make things worse by doing the 'controlled exercise' if the horse should be on box rest if it is the ligament...

So, I guess the only way to know for sure is to pay for the MRI... Sigh.

: - )
 
The Controlled walk work for mine was to try to break the Adhesions to the DDFT.
I did do Box rest for a rediculous amount of time then i turned out in a tiny pen.
If i had my time again i wouldnt do the Box rest for more than 2 weeks & would T/O in a tiny pen.
 
dressagecrazy said:
The Controlled walk work for mine was to try to break the Adhesions to the DDFT.
I did do Box rest for a rediculous amount of time then i turned out in a tiny pen.
If i had my time again i wouldnt do the Box rest for more than 2 weeks & would T/O in a tiny pen.
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Yeah, I was told not to bother with box rest as the horse was living out previously. Had beeen on box rest for nearly 2 weeks prior to being diagnosed as I could not get an appointment.
Did turn out in a small patch initially but after the first week or so, put him in a bigger field. Maybe that's where the problem is...???
 
My horse had similar, I did not go for a scan - we had the same discussion with vet who agreed that it's a better option to spend the money on treatment. We tried Tildren and she came sound after two weeks. She's had another dose as I felt she wasn't stepping out as much as she used to although seemed sound and has come back into full work since. It may have been the remedial shoeing as well over time, she's had egg bar shoes for 6-7 months and has been shod by a specialist, but so far (touch wood) this has worked for her. Fingers crossed for your horse, it's a horrible condition.
 
aintgotnohay said:
i had horse with this years ago-it was given bute a shoed with an egg bar shoe/similar.was never lame again.sometimes the old ways are cheaper and the best.
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How long was it on bute for???


MRI scans would be great and i'm sure that they'd help one way or another even if it was to dismiss soft tissue damage BUT on a practical level if it were me and I had to pay half I think i'd use that money to send him to Rockley Farm.
Barefoot rehabilitation has been pretty successful in horses with all types of 'navicular', why not give Nic at Rockley a call and chat to her - she's very nice. :)
 
ITPersonnage said:
My horse had similar, I did not go for a scan - we had the same discussion with vet who agreed that it's a better option to spend the money on treatment. We tried Tildren and she came sound after two weeks. She's had another dose as I felt she wasn't stepping out as much as she used to although seemed sound and has come back into full work since. It may have been the remedial shoeing as well over time, she's had egg bar shoes for 6-7 months and has been shod by a specialist, but so far (touch wood) this has worked for her. Fingers crossed for your horse, it's a horrible condition.
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I asked the vet about Tildren when he did the injections, and he said in his experience it does nothing for navicular, and he had seen horses that got worse following this treatment!

Will mention it again when I eventually get hold of him!

Really annoyed with insurance as well tbh, by the time we've done all other possible treatments, it probably would have been cheaper for them to just pay for the mri!
 
Delta99 said:
The horse was diagnosed by a good vet,
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So was my rehab who was about to be put down after medication and remedial shoeing failed him. Barefoot now for just over a year, he won a large show championships the other week and is currently hacking for 2 hours in stony Welsh Hills. He is far, far from alone in sound barefoot rehabs who were written off by vets and farriers.

Delta99 said:
He is now proper lame again, both reins so I'm guessing it's more than just changes in the bone.
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It's almost always more than just changes to the bone. Research shows that the soft tissue damage is amost always present, it is rare for it not to be. It's just that most horses aren't MRI'd, so no-one knows about those. Your vet should know this, if you question him about it.

Don't waste your money on an MRI, do a barefoot rehab for 3 months first and MRI if your horse is still unsound at the end of that time.

Barefoot rehabs are not box rested. Turnout is good for these injuries, which are caused by weak back half of the foot, which needs the stimulus to rebuild. A barefoot rehab rests the injury, not the horse (to borrow from Nic Barker).


Delta99 said:
My concern really is that I don't want to make things worse by doing the 'controlled exercise' if the horse should be on box rest if it is the ligament...

So, I guess the only way to know for sure is to pay for the MRI... Sigh.
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You won't. He shouldn't. The MRI will tell you what is going on, but the treatment will not alter, so what's the point?
 
Thanks, cptrayes!
It's always great to hear of horses with this condition doing well!

One more question for you barefoot fans:

Does Nic Barker at Rockley farm do anything during the time the horses are there that I could not do myself at home??

From what I can see the only difference is the varied terrain down there?
Have ordered the book btw, so hopefully that will give me an idea about diet and how to transition to barefoot etc...
 
I agree in a way about T/O but what i would say is if you have a horse like mine who will & does turn himself inside out in the field & will not happily just potter around a field.
Then use a small T/O pen as almost certainly you will not want him cantering or in my case we could even have trotting. Controlled excersise is the key ime of my horses injury not just Turning out into a vast field & forgetting about him.

He is now T/O in a big field but he was in the Pen for months, we then gradually opened the pen over a period of a couple of months. He was already hacking out but the jarring of sliding stops & spinning round would make him hoping lame, so we had to control that.

He's now 100% sound so he's starting back on the road now to getting him back to where he was. He was competing Medium & working Adv at home so time will tell. It will be the lateral work that will show it up.
 
I have a horse with navicular syndrome. Diagnosed mainly via lameness work up. Minor changes to the nav bone in one foot but as already stated on here the use of x-ray in this type of diagnosis is limited. I strongly suspect mine has a degree of soft tissue damage and the only way to really know to what extent would be MRI. I opted not to MRI in this instance as felt it would not change the treatment plan for the horse (I too would have had to pay half). Instead, under insurance, we threw a variety of treatments at the horse - tildren, shockwave, eggbars & pads and joint suppliment. The horse was managed and sound for about 2 years like that but gradually deteriorated.

As it was he also had hock issues so the decision was taken to retire him, if he hadn't had those complicating issues I may have considered trying a barefoot rehab for him and in your position now I would try the rehab before paying for MRI.
 
If you have a diagnosis of navicular, no amount of MRI'ng is going to start off the treatment or change anything so I'd save your money.
There was no Rockley Farm when my horse was dx with navicular, so I did it myself with professional trimmer attending.
The remedial farriery I had done didn't stop the progression of navicular because, as I learnt after deshoeing, it's the shoes - "any iron, nailed on shoes) causing the problem so if you have special shoes put on you are only putting off the inevitable.
My advice would be definitely to go bare as he is so young. At least he has only been shod a few years whereas my boy had been shod contiuously
for 14 years and so there was a lot of damage to undo.
You have a young horse and a much better prospect for successful rehab and a barefoot (competition if you want) life ahead of you both. Good luck ;)
 
Sorry to butt in on this topic but I have a question about Navicular also. So my horse has been to the vets this week due to some eratic behaviour. Now he was sent there for a bone scan as the vet thought it was his back as he has muscle wastage on his right side. However, the bone scan showed nothing going on in his back. However his feet were showing warm (not hot) on the scan so the decided to x-ray his back feet? The horse isn't lame though. However upon x-raying they found some changes on his navicular bone so went ahead and MRI'd and yes he has some damage there. Now my question is as he isn't lame is this just an incidental finding?
 
aintgotnohay said:
i had horse with this years ago-it was given bute a shoed with an egg bar shoe/similar.was never lame again.sometimes the old ways are cheaper and the best.
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oh this was going back years ago.have no idea how much the shoes are and the horse was on bute for six months and then he wasnt lame all time.it was along time ago and cant remember all details.
 
Delta99 said:
Thanks, cptrayes!
It's always great to hear of horses with this condition doing well!

One more question for you barefoot fans:

Does Nic Barker at Rockley farm do anything during the time the horses are there that I could not do myself at home??

From what I can see the only difference is the varied terrain down there?
Have ordered the book btw, so hopefully that will give me an idea about diet and how to transition to barefoot etc...
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It is perfectly possible to do a rehab at home. The benefits of Rockely are that Nic takes responsibility for you and she has the most perfect conditioning facilities. What she is able to do just with turnout, the rest of us have to replicate with lots of legwork and very, very careful trimming. And because of that, it may well take a bit longer but as you can tell from my horse, it's still just as effective. Mine was dressage competition sound in 11 weeks and farm ride/jumping sound in 13.

As a start point, it will help if your horse will have his frogs in contact with the floor when his shoes come off. Can you see whether this will be the case? It may make him sore to begin with, but it will quickly provide the stimulus that he will need to build the back half of his foot up. I guarantee you will be STUNNED at how quickly changes happen.

Be warned too that if he has poor quality white line/hoof connection, under those shoes that it is not uncommon for them to abscess early on when dirt gets in. Nic has few abscess in her care, unfortunately I have seen several. It's not a big issue and it seems pretty unavoidable though a correct diet before removing the shoes will help.

The book is a good idea, I hope you like the picture of me and George on the front cover :)
 
Finally got hold of the vet yesterday! Of course he said MRI is the way to go, but it seemed that this was mainly to see if there were tears in the tendon (sheath?) that may have leaked fluid into the bursa.
Is this a common thing to happen? I'm a bit concerned because the horse went lame very suddenly, there was no shortened or pottery stride beforehand to indicate that there may be a problem.

As for the turnout, how big an area do you recommend he should be in? I had him on a 20 m square initially but of course he could still trot and canter round...
 
Delta99 said:
Finally got hold of the vet yesterday! Of course he said MRI is the way to go, but it seemed that this was mainly to see if there were tears in the tendon (sheath?) that may have leaked fluid into the bursa.
Is this a common thing to happen? I'm a bit concerned because the horse went lame very suddenly, there was no shortened or pottery stride beforehand to indicate that there may be a problem.

As for the turnout, how big an area do you recommend he should be in? I had him on a 20 m square initially but of course he could still trot and canter round...
Click to expand...

This is what happened to my boy, he went lame suddenly. Unfortunately the only way to know what your dealing with is an MRI.
Or you can go down the whip of shoes & rest route but you will never know exactly what your horse is recovering from. It could be something that could take months or take years or it may be more serious. Without diagnosing you wont ever know.:(

My T/O pen was smaller than my stables it was a 12x12 electric fenced pen initially & i moved it everyday so he had fresh grass. I also put Hay in there, i did sedate at first to keep the stupid behaviour at bay. I then gradually made it bigger over a period of months.

I ended with the Latter of the 2 options but i really needed to know what i was dealing with. I had spent 5 years re-backing & getting my horse competing Medium & working adv so i needed to know what his chances where by using an MRI to diagnose.
 
It is a tough one as to whether to MRI or not. If the money wasn't an issue it would be an easy choice.

If it were my horse (and money IS an issue to me;)) I would enlist the services of an EXCELLENT barefoot specialist and take the horse barefoot at home.

If I was still having issues 6 months later, I would consider an MRI - but I am very confident I would not need to.

I have been 'drinking the Kool Aid' with regards to barefoot for the last 7 years, learning as much as I can and I have a trimmer I can trust. So it would be an easy choice for me.

Without wishing to be patronising, as you are someone new to barefoot and what it involves to rehab a horse with pathology, you would have a few obsticales.

The main one would be that you would be working without the support of your vets and farrier. So when you hit a problem, you would need someone else to turn to. That can be very scary!

It is very possible to rehab your horse at home rather than go to Rockley. The ease of Rockley is that you are handing all the worry and responsibility to Nic there. If you rehab at home - it's all on you, as your vet and farrier may not be able to help you.

My livery mate did just that and successfully rehabbed their navicular horse at home - with the same excellent trimmer I have. The vet and farrier were vehemently opposed to the idea so the owner had only the support of our trimmer. http://www.progressivehorse.co.uk/html/shoko.html

Luckily, any hitches were very minimal.

So basically I am saying that to rehab at home - the trimmer you pick is key. Please don't rely on a website to tell you that. Personal recommendation by at least 5 different people is the way to go;)
 
Oberon thats very good advice, ive rehabed mine at home.

Luckily my Vets & Dr Milner at Leahurst where not against BF at all. My own Vet is fasinated by it & is very open minded he also trusts what i do which is lovely.
 
There's some great advice on here, but as someone who's just been through a similar decision-making process I thought I'd share my experience!

My RI's horse went to Rockley last autumn, like many others he had an extremely grim outlook before he went but he's now sound and gradually the rest of his body (which had clearly been compensating for his sore feet for many years) is catching up, with the exception of a bout of azoturia a couple of weeks ago. Around the time that he went to Rockley, my horse went lame on the off-fore. The vet thought it was nothing serious, but my RI and I noticed at the time that he was landing toe-first. I was working abroad over the winter so we turned him away (he was only 5 and had had a tough year, so it seemed the right thing to do on many levels).

He came back into work in late Feb and we've been progressing well, he's muscled up evenly and though he was still landing toe-first he was sound. I wanted to go barefoot, so improved his diet and took his back shoes off with no problems 10 weeks ago. The fronts came off a month ago, which was more complicated as he was quite foot-sore and we didn't have great facilities for conditioning the feet at the livery yard, plus it was hard to control his diet as he was on part-livery. Last Thursday, the inevitable happened and he went lame. A nerve-block showed the problem was in his caudal hoof.

My vet also wanted to MRI but I couldn't see the point in paying out all that money when the treatment options wouldn't be that different. Plus as my horse is so young I don't want to go down the medication and remedial shoeing route. Knowing that I couldn't rehab at home, I emailed Nic at Rockley and she's now taken him on. I am confident that she'll get him on the right path and also that my vet will learn a lot! However, if I had my horse at home or at a more flexible yard (not the YM's fault, the landlord is very strict about partitioning the fields etc.) then I would have preferred to rehab him myself. I'm sure the learning curve would be steep but extremely useful, and there is a lot of support and help from the barefoot community these days. As others have said, moral support is as important as technical support as most people will be saying "just put his shoes back on"!!

Sorry for the long post, but hopefully my rambling thought process will be helpful / interesting ;)
 
I was in the same situation lasy year and was told i would never ride the TB again. he had severe changes (after Xrays) and needed an MRI and remedial shoeing!

I contacted a few people on here (thankyou CPTrayes) and they convinced me that barefoot was the answer! I ignored the vet and contacted Trevor Jones AEP In Sussex who came out and said that although the X rays were proof positive, that there was also very bad whiteline disease. We treated that and the next day he walked sound! Since then we have a trimming regime that means that my boy is sound on all surfaces. He does wear boots for hacking (I'm worried that he will stand on a stone and I'll have to get off and won't get back on again!)

The MRI would have made no difference-we knew what one of the issues was!

I urge you to go the barefoot route. If I had tried remedial shoeing first, I don't think that we would be in the same situation as we are now. With regards turnout, the foot requires stimulation that they don't get from box rest. I just turned mine out! (My decision)!
 
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