TWMD
Well-Known Member
Just looking for a bit of sympathy/support really, and any stories of people with similar experiences to me.
About 2 years ago, my 11 yr old ISH went to the vets for a performance workup as he was struggling with suppleness and maintaining a consistent contact when ridden, but he showed no obvious signs of lameness. After a series of nerve blocks and x rays, we isolated the problem to his front feet and he was diagnosed with the early stages of navicular. The vet felt this couldn’t be the only cause so also x rayed his hocks and back. Hocks were fine but he was found to also have KS, with 4 touching DSPs.
He had the lig snip, steroid injections into his SI joint (where he had secondary pain) and steroid injections into the navicular bursa. I rehabbed him slowly and just over a year after surgery he was back out successfully eventing at BE90 and felt like a different horse. Yippee.
Since then, we have kept him sound through careful management and 6 monthly steroid injections for his feet. The KS surgery seems to have been a resounding success- my physio has found no back pain whatsoever, and has commented on how well he looks in his musculature. However he always shows some tightness though his shoulders, neck and poll.
This summer, he started showing the same symptoms as he had before the initial vet workup (very resistant in the contact and struggling with suppleness over his topline). Out came the vet who said he looked fine in front but found some v mild bilateral lameness after flexion testing his hocks. Vet put it down to concussion from the v. hard ground we had this year (even though I’d been extra careful not to run him on the hard) and injected his hocks with steroids which seemed to do the trick. He’s now had a couple of months of going well but has recently started to deteriorate again.
The vet is coming out early next week to do a full investigation again with a view to re-x raying his hocks and MRI-ing his feet. I’m feeling like we are exactly where we were 2 years ago. It’s so frustrating as the lameness is so subtle and intermittent, he is so well in himself, he looks great, his musculature is great, some days he goes beautifully and I think I’m going mad and it’s all in my head but then some days he’s so difficult to school I think there must be a problem somewhere. My trainer has sat on him and thinks it’s a schooling issue as he couldn’t feel any lameness/blocking in him but my gut feeling is there’s something causing him to be like this.
Any snippets of wisdom? Other than feet and hocks, are there any other avenues I should be exploring? He’s recently had teeth done, saddle checked and physio and no problems there. I so wish he could just talk!
TIA
About 2 years ago, my 11 yr old ISH went to the vets for a performance workup as he was struggling with suppleness and maintaining a consistent contact when ridden, but he showed no obvious signs of lameness. After a series of nerve blocks and x rays, we isolated the problem to his front feet and he was diagnosed with the early stages of navicular. The vet felt this couldn’t be the only cause so also x rayed his hocks and back. Hocks were fine but he was found to also have KS, with 4 touching DSPs.
He had the lig snip, steroid injections into his SI joint (where he had secondary pain) and steroid injections into the navicular bursa. I rehabbed him slowly and just over a year after surgery he was back out successfully eventing at BE90 and felt like a different horse. Yippee.
Since then, we have kept him sound through careful management and 6 monthly steroid injections for his feet. The KS surgery seems to have been a resounding success- my physio has found no back pain whatsoever, and has commented on how well he looks in his musculature. However he always shows some tightness though his shoulders, neck and poll.
This summer, he started showing the same symptoms as he had before the initial vet workup (very resistant in the contact and struggling with suppleness over his topline). Out came the vet who said he looked fine in front but found some v mild bilateral lameness after flexion testing his hocks. Vet put it down to concussion from the v. hard ground we had this year (even though I’d been extra careful not to run him on the hard) and injected his hocks with steroids which seemed to do the trick. He’s now had a couple of months of going well but has recently started to deteriorate again.
The vet is coming out early next week to do a full investigation again with a view to re-x raying his hocks and MRI-ing his feet. I’m feeling like we are exactly where we were 2 years ago. It’s so frustrating as the lameness is so subtle and intermittent, he is so well in himself, he looks great, his musculature is great, some days he goes beautifully and I think I’m going mad and it’s all in my head but then some days he’s so difficult to school I think there must be a problem somewhere. My trainer has sat on him and thinks it’s a schooling issue as he couldn’t feel any lameness/blocking in him but my gut feeling is there’s something causing him to be like this.
Any snippets of wisdom? Other than feet and hocks, are there any other avenues I should be exploring? He’s recently had teeth done, saddle checked and physio and no problems there. I so wish he could just talk!
TIA
He is very flexible in his neck, we do regular carrot stretches and he can reach round to his hip and is even on both sides. It's the underside of his neck he gets sore, and through the thoracic sling, presumably because he bracing himself all the time.