Pin firing

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moocow

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Just wondering what your opinions are on this as a method of treatment. i know very little about it but its one of those things that i have always associated with being a bad thing. I was at my work experience at the weekend (I plan to apply for vet med next year) and i was in a very well respected, very large equine practice that deals mainly with race horses and i saw them pin fire a stallion that came in. i asked the vet afterwords and he said that they routinely do it and they believe that it gives brilliant results for shin soreness. i said I dodn't realise that it was something that was still carried out and he said its a pretty routine treatment. I said i didn't think the science behind it help up and wasn't oppinion devided on the treatment. he said it was not carried out in th UK on welfare grounds but that the science did hold up and that it converts osteoplasts to osteoblasts immediately (????) and results are almost instant.

Any oppinions? Still doesn't sit well with me for some reason. would be interested to hear what you think.
 
I did'nt think they were still allowed to do that
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I'm not quite sure what they do but I don't think I'd like to know to be honest
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This subject keeps coming up. It appears barbaric but I have known it to be effective and have had a fired ex racehorse myself. If I thought a horse needed this kind of treatment, knowing that it is still available in Ireland gives me some hope..I had assumed it wasn't available any more anywhere
 
have to say, i didn't see the aftermath and the proceedure itself was no worse than watching any surgical proceedure. the horse was heavily sedated and didn't react to the iron at all. I can't say what it looked like or what he was going through after he came out of the sedation though.

His shin was barely marked when i saw it. I imagine the wounds will come up in time. just strange to see it is such a well respected practice and by vets that are equine specialists. have to say if nothing else, it has confirmed tome that i don't want to work in equine practice and that the knowledge of vets is not what they would like you to think it is.

there have been a couple of things that i have seen them do that made no sense at all. Obviously as a work experience student, it is certainly NOT my place to comment but treatement of strangles with penicillin? not culturing a cronic sinus infection? just goes to show, reputation is not everything!
 
I had my horse done may years ago now, and sorry no i will not apologize for having it done. Yes it may have been a bit painful for a few days after it but my horse is still alive today beause of it, i was told to have him PTS or he had to be fired beause he had broken down so badly and the leg would never stand even for hacking if it was not done. He is a very happy boy and i am as sure as hell he don't remember any of it.
 
thats the thing Sarah23, I had always just heard that it wasa bad thing welfare grounds etc. but the horse was heavily sedated and if it elevates the problem, then it is no worse than any other surgical proceedure that we put them through is it? I think its more the lack of understanding of how it works that i have a problem with. i couldn't geta straight satisfactory answer from the vet as to why pin firing resulted "curing" the shin soreness.

i am not comfortable with any practitioner, medical or veterinary carrying out a proceedure when they don't understand why they are doing it or what exactly is the affect of what they are doing.
 
I saw the front of the shin being done. They take a caurterising iron (spell?) and tip it off the cannon bone at about half centimeter intervals and tip the iron of the sides of the cannon bone at the same intervals.

horse was heavily sedated in a world of his own and didn't even react to the iron. The idea being that the crontic condition has now got an acute condition at the same site and that the immune response to the acute condition will sort the cronic condition at the same time.

i believe that is the theory behind it but i could be wrong.
 
Moocow, that is the explanation I've been taught and I don't really agree with it either. When watching practises like this remember that what you are learning at vet school is often new information that wasn't available when these people trained. I don't know how much access vets have to new knowledge/findings once they start practising but I'd imagine some will find a method that works for them and stick with it even if they don't fully understand it and better methods have been invented. It's your job as an up and coming vet to get the new ways of thinking and practices out there to prve to the older fashioned vets that there are better ways of doing things. Remember you are your own person, there is no need to carry on doing something just because that's how it's always been done, if you know a better way use it and stand up for yourself. I hope that practices like this don't put you off working with equines, it's thinking people like you that the industry needs!
 
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