Please Help? Not kissing spine what else?

[Laura-Crosby]

Hi,
I am looking for a bit of help/advise as to what to do with my 5 year old Cob, Recently he has been very reluctant/refusing to move, bucking bronking. I have had the physio out, saddle checked, teeth done and front shoes put on, nothing helped. I have has the vet out who also did his back, came back a week later to Xray his back as symptoms were leading to kissing spine, Thankfully there is no kissing spine ( he's had injections into his back to see if that makes any difference) there however he is still not willing to move forward and he doesn't look right behind. He's been flexion tested by the vet and trotted up sound. I am at a loss as to what this could be. I am going to see what he is like tonight after his recent escapades. and then ringing the vert tomorrow probably, Any ideas/advice welcome.

THANKS

 

[PorkChop]

Completely feel for you as one of ours appears to be a medical mystery at the moment.

Was his back scanned as well, often if they have damaged soft tissue in their backs it can present with the same symptoms - though you would have thought there would have been some improvement after the injections.

Does he have any other symptoms?

 

[Caramac71]

We went through similar with our mare last year - lameness work up all ok, back xrays all looked fine (she even had scope for ulcers and ovaries scanned). She ended up going in for bone scan and this showed (after further diagnostics) arthritic changes to the facet joints in her thoracic spine and strain to her supraspinous ligament. The back xrays hadn't shown anything as the area of spine affected was obscured by her gut.

Doesnt sound like her symptoms were the same as yours though - hers started off with kicking out in canter and then progressed to reluctance to canter, then trot, then walk.

It's so hard when you dont know what is wrong. I hope you get some answers soon.

 

[Laura-Crosby]

He hasn't had a scan but i think the next step is a bone scan. His only symptoms are being unwilling to move forward and a very strange hind leg movement hes not had before.

 

[be positive]

More info please, has anything changed in his management before he started showing the reluctance to move, does he live in/ out or both? what is he fed? what work were you doing with him before he became reluctant to move? plus anything else that may seem irrelevant but could be a piece of the jigsaw.
How did the physio find him initially and why shoe in front did you suspect LGL??

 

[Laura-Crosby]

Hi, management wise nothing changed, he was out on a night and in through the day. They have now swapped round this weekend ( IN night OUT day) He is fed-Chaff, Cool Mix and 365 Balancer. He was in work 4/5 times a week a mixture of hacking, Schooling and jumping. The physio found him quite loose and didn't really find much wrong with him. I put front shoes on to see if he could possibly be foot-sore as he has feet like concrete i didn't think this would make a difference but it was worth a try. It seemed to come after his work load was upped a bit ( he had a holiday last winter)

 

[ycbm]

Sacroiliac strain. Spine ligament strain.Broken pelvis. Impinging neck vertebra (hind leg nerves are on the outside of the spinal cord, so get pinched first. PSSM.

I would test on a PSSM diet first, as he's a cob.
Then x ray neck, as that should be cheap.
Then gamma ray scintigraph the whole horse.


I hope you get to the bottom of it.

 

[SEL]

My PSSM horse trots up sound - which is why vet etc thought I was being neurotic about saying there was something wrong with her.

Under saddle she is stiff behind and if she's out of her tightly regulated routine then she can look crippled. In fact when she had 2 weeks just on the horse walker whilst my saddle was sorted the saddler couldn't believe how horrendous she looked when I hoped back on board. If I push too much before she's ready she bucks. If she's feeling really good about life but she gets a muscle twinge then she also bucks.

Some cobs can have draft horse way back in their breeding, so PSSM is always worth a mention to the vet (plus its really, really cheap to test)

 

[be positive]

PSSM was the direction I was also going in, his diet is not PSSM friendly and upping the workload may have tipped the balance, it would be the first thing I would look into with anything that just seems wrong with no other obvious reason, it is also no something many vets are clued up on so would not be picked up by many.

 

[BethH]

When you say odd behind can you explain a bit more, are the hind legs swinging in an inward slightly circular movement at all - spavin just popped into my head as I was reading and mine looked like he was struggling in the pelvis area as it transferred upwards.

He was treated by vet as if spavin, but I think the underlying cause was foot balance. I was going to shoe, after a long chat with my new farrier, he slightly changed his heels/breakover point and he has come sound and is back into work and behaving like a complete plank at the moment.

Sometimes a small change makes a big difference!! Foot balance or the very early start of spavin can make them stuffy behind and not quite right on and off. Also, the weather keeps changing, if it is a touch of arthritis that can play havoc with how their joints feel imho and can be a contributory factor.

 

[Pearlsasinger]

We were within a very few weeks of having a 12 yr old TBx made pts because of behavioural issues, when sis read about a gelding who had a cough and serious lameness, which was solved by changing his diet. As our made also had a cough, we decided to adjust her diet to make her remaining days more comfortable. Within a week, she was like a different animal, cough gone, much easier to handle, unpredictability gone.
Any problems with horses that don't have an obvious cause, I always strip the feed right back to grass and hay. This is what I would do with your horse, OP. I would probably also talk to vet about testing for hindgut ulcers.

 

[vanrim]

Not wanting to go forward can be a symptom of gastric ulcers. It would be worth considering getting your horse scoped.I second the suggestion of the Succeed test for hind gut ulcers too.