Ongoing Lameness - Also in Vet

[Amo]

Apologies for the long post but here goes……………..and before anyone says, yes it does appear I am slowly breaking him or we are jinxed !!


My boy has been on and off lame since I brought him 15 months ago, all slightly different reasons which so far have been easily identifiable and solved. I only had him 1 months before he cut his front right leg, just on the fetlock which was quite deep and took a long time to heal, resulting in him being lame and out of work for 3 to 4 months. Came back into work for 2 weeks before going lame on his front left. It seems due to compensating for his previous injury his other leg took the strain and as a result his hoof wall had separated slightly from the lamini, cue more lameness and off work for another 3 or 4 months. Now has heart bars fitted to prevent any reoccurrence of this issue (touch wood)

A few weeks before he was able to come back into work thought best to have saddle checked as he had changed shape, pretty much got told to never put that saddle back on him, it was way too tight, admittedly I should have had it checked when I first took him on and it was on my list of things to do so to a degree my own fault (I felt bad enough at the time so please be nice) Ordered a lovely new saddle that fitted but took 6 weeks to arrive. By the time we were all kitted out correctly he had been off work for 9 months.

Obviously during this time he lost pretty much all of his muscle do I knew I had to take it really slowly with him. I built him up hacking from literally 10 mins a couple of times a week to 1 hour hacks 6 days a week over a 2 month period (I went very slow to this point) His muscle did start to develop, not as much as I expected to be honest but he wasn’t being worked too hard. After this I then decided to get back on with my lessons, as part of these lessons my instructor was getting the boy to work from behind. I got homework to practise and we started schooling 4/5 a week. All going well until he starting going lame on his back end, only slight ranging from 1/10 through to 3/10 and mainly on left. It is very intermittent and can come and go within a few strides, and I mean he can literally trot up the long side of the school and do a few strides of lame, sound then lame again. I convinced myself at this point that I had pushed him to hard in the school to fast and he had pulled a muscle or something similar. Asked the vet for some bute to make him slightly more comfortable and in case there was any inflammation and vet agreed, also put him on box rest a few days. He was off work for 2 weeks before I got back on. Took him out for a hack and same problem again. He has been like this now for 3 months. (Oh and during this time he has had Lymphangitis as well)

So far the vet has done nerve blocks on both feet, joint blocks on both hocks and xrays on both hocks. The right hock has the start of arthritis so 2 weeks ago he had a steroid injection which does seem to have sorted the right, the left is still a mystery. The next plan of attach is to either send him to Liverpool for Scintigraphy or Thermology. Both of these needs to wait a few weeks before we do anything else to let him have a small break from needles to be honest. I have been instructed to carry on riding him on gentle hacks to keep him moving and he is sound enough for this easily, he even gets his silly pants on quite often so is not in any real pain.

I am waiting for the vet to phone me back to discuss getting a Physio out to see if they are able to assist in diagnosing where the issue is, he hasn’t seemed keen on this idea so far.

Has anyone had anything similar? Can you think of anything else I could do in the meantime?

If anyone made it this far I am very impressed

 

[be positive]

With all those issues I would be having routine physio to help keep him comfortable, they often compensate in some way when carrying an injury long term, he has also had in the past a badly fitting saddle again physio would have helped him to use himself properly following that.

Has your saddle been checked since he has been back in full work, most need reflocking within a month or two as the new flocking settles and he has probably changed shape since he was measured for it.

I would do the above before going any further with tests, it could be something easily sorted with a few treatments from a good physio, it is a shame when vets fail to recommend other professionals, especially when they cannot find a reason for the lameness.

 

[Amo]

With all those issues I would be having routine physio to help keep him comfortable, they often compensate in some way when carrying an injury long term, he has also had in the past a badly fitting saddle again physio would have helped him to use himself properly following that.

Has your saddle been checked since he has been back in full work, most need reflocking within a month or two as the new flocking settles and he has probably changed shape since he was measured for it.

I would do the above before going any further with tests, it could be something easily sorted with a few treatments from a good physio, it is a shame when vets fail to recommend other professionals, especially when they cannot find a reason for the lameness.

His saddle has been checked twice since I recieved it in March, nothing needed doing first time and last time it needed slightly tweaking on the left side due to his muscle building. Just left a voicemail for a recommended Physio in my area.
I just feel awkward as the vet is reluctant to get a Physio involved. I do trust him 100% but all along I have said it feels as though it is in his hip/pelvis area but it has taken 3 months to get the vet to agree, and this is with nerve/joint blocking anything possible lol This is my first horse so I am a novice and do not know better than the vet by ant stretch of the imagination, but I do know my horse (I rode him for 2 1/2 years before buying him so have coming up to 4 years of knowing him)

Thanks for the reply