bosephine15
New User
I'm at a bit of a loss with my horse, hopefully someone here can give some insight!
Horse's previous history (not including this year): 8 year old paint who does hunter/jumper that I've owned since she was 4 months old. Has had 3 attacks of laminitis, once at 3 years old and 2 separate times at 6 years old. They were all related to high fevers (one was virus related, and two were vaccine reactions). While she's not a hard keeper, she has not been overweight and never seemed to have a grass sensitivity, although she's never been on lush grass. She no longer receives vaccines unfortunately because her reactions are so severe, even while on bute for days before.
Other than the laminitis, of course, she has not had any significant lameness issues other than the odd abscess every couple of years and has been barefoot for most of her life.
The following x-rays were taken in 2012 for my farrier before putting shoes on due to an increased workload, just to have an idea of what was happening in her feet.
She was sound and had her shoes pulled for the winter. The next year she was barefoot and had the 2 attacks of laminitis. She had styrofoam cut out and placed on her feet which was quite amazing with how much relief it gave her. She recovered over that year and returned to work, sound, at 7.
Fast forward to this year. She started the year 100% sound training for the 1m jumpers with front shoes on. Had an amazing jump school one day (she didn't put a foot wrong), but the next day she turned up lame on her front right with swelling over her superficial flexor tendon. Thinking she tore it somehow, she stayed on stall rest for a couple of days with ice off and on until she could have an ultrasound. Did the ultrasound, didn't find any lesions, and the swelling was all superficial between the tendon and skin.
Gave her 2 weeks off with turn out and hand walking, the swelling went away, and she was sound on soft footing.
I went to slowly bring her back into work, but decided to ride in the grass ring with firmer footing so I didn't irritate her tendons in the deep sand. Well, it turned out she wasn't in fact sound and was foot sore on the hard ground.
There were some people in the barn who liked to feed her sugary treats, so we wondered if she was having a more mild attack of laminitis. She had a diet overhaul, we are treating her as if she has EMS (again, the vet confirms she is not overweight, but thought it was worth a shot). She had about a month off and appeared sound.
Over the summer she was back in work off and on. She appeared sound the entire time, but would have issues off and on that seemed to be behaviour linked (would jump sometimes, not other times). I thought maybe it was my riding, so I put 2 more experienced riders on her and she had the same issues. The one rider said she was ring sour. I finally decided that the behaviour was not like her and she must be in pain, and occasionally I could feel slight differences in her gait (sometimes the left hind felt out, sometimes her right shoulder felt stiff, etc.). Had the vet out, and they agreed she was sound. Passed all flexion tests in all 4 legs. Did a chiro as she does tend to get locked up in the SI joints. We continued going in circles....I had my farrier pull her shoes 2 weeks ago and she's been off work since then.
After pulling the shoes she was a bit tender hand walking over hard gravel, but nothing horribly dramatic considering she just had her shoes off. She gets her feet painted with iodine regularly to toughen her sole. However, she got worse and ended up obviously lame at the walk on hard ground and her white line was pink on both fronts.
Had the vet out to repeat the x-rays.
Here are the x-rays. We did equal shots left to right so I believe some were labelled in error:
LEFT DP
RIGHT DP
Also x-rayed her hocks. Vet said there are mild changes to her hocks but absolutely nothing out of the ordinary or dramatic. Feet showed her history of laminitis, but again nothing to explain what's happening. Sent the x-rays for a second opinion to the vet college and they had the same opinion. Vet watched her on soft ground and she appeared sound. Sent her hair for 5 panel QH genetic testing, mainly to rule out PSSM1. All tests came back negative.
Showed the vet how she went on gravel. At this point we're thinking laminitis again and toe pain. We blocked her front right heel and she showed dramatic improvement- looked completely sound on the right and really lame on the left. Blocked her front right toe which didn't give any additional improvement. So perhaps she's bruising/stressing her toes while she's taking weight off the heels.
Sorry for the novel but this horse has been quite confusing this year! I'm not happy about the definitive heel pain but it's certainly better than having no idea what's going on/wrongly thinking it's her toes. Of course, we aren't sure what's causing it. An MRI is the next step and we are looking into the logistics and cost of that. Given the fact that she's so much better on soft footing I'm leaning towards a navicular or joint issue. She's also much better with shoes, so I'm confident we can cover up the lameness with shoeing, but it certainly doesn't seem to improve it in the long run. And I don't want to be jumping her with a band-aid fix.
Does anyone have any experience with this? I am wondering if she can be managed barefoot, so at least when she's sore I'll know about it versus covering up her pain with shoes. Or perhaps we need to shoe her up as best we can to make her as comfortable as possible and just semi-retire her to light work. No matter what I just want what's best for her. I of course need to talk with my farrier further, who is excellent and very open to discussion/different options, but any advice would be great.
Thanks
Horse's previous history (not including this year): 8 year old paint who does hunter/jumper that I've owned since she was 4 months old. Has had 3 attacks of laminitis, once at 3 years old and 2 separate times at 6 years old. They were all related to high fevers (one was virus related, and two were vaccine reactions). While she's not a hard keeper, she has not been overweight and never seemed to have a grass sensitivity, although she's never been on lush grass. She no longer receives vaccines unfortunately because her reactions are so severe, even while on bute for days before.
Other than the laminitis, of course, she has not had any significant lameness issues other than the odd abscess every couple of years and has been barefoot for most of her life.
The following x-rays were taken in 2012 for my farrier before putting shoes on due to an increased workload, just to have an idea of what was happening in her feet.
She was sound and had her shoes pulled for the winter. The next year she was barefoot and had the 2 attacks of laminitis. She had styrofoam cut out and placed on her feet which was quite amazing with how much relief it gave her. She recovered over that year and returned to work, sound, at 7.
Fast forward to this year. She started the year 100% sound training for the 1m jumpers with front shoes on. Had an amazing jump school one day (she didn't put a foot wrong), but the next day she turned up lame on her front right with swelling over her superficial flexor tendon. Thinking she tore it somehow, she stayed on stall rest for a couple of days with ice off and on until she could have an ultrasound. Did the ultrasound, didn't find any lesions, and the swelling was all superficial between the tendon and skin.
Gave her 2 weeks off with turn out and hand walking, the swelling went away, and she was sound on soft footing.
I went to slowly bring her back into work, but decided to ride in the grass ring with firmer footing so I didn't irritate her tendons in the deep sand. Well, it turned out she wasn't in fact sound and was foot sore on the hard ground.
There were some people in the barn who liked to feed her sugary treats, so we wondered if she was having a more mild attack of laminitis. She had a diet overhaul, we are treating her as if she has EMS (again, the vet confirms she is not overweight, but thought it was worth a shot). She had about a month off and appeared sound.
Over the summer she was back in work off and on. She appeared sound the entire time, but would have issues off and on that seemed to be behaviour linked (would jump sometimes, not other times). I thought maybe it was my riding, so I put 2 more experienced riders on her and she had the same issues. The one rider said she was ring sour. I finally decided that the behaviour was not like her and she must be in pain, and occasionally I could feel slight differences in her gait (sometimes the left hind felt out, sometimes her right shoulder felt stiff, etc.). Had the vet out, and they agreed she was sound. Passed all flexion tests in all 4 legs. Did a chiro as she does tend to get locked up in the SI joints. We continued going in circles....I had my farrier pull her shoes 2 weeks ago and she's been off work since then.
After pulling the shoes she was a bit tender hand walking over hard gravel, but nothing horribly dramatic considering she just had her shoes off. She gets her feet painted with iodine regularly to toughen her sole. However, she got worse and ended up obviously lame at the walk on hard ground and her white line was pink on both fronts.
Had the vet out to repeat the x-rays.
Here are the x-rays. We did equal shots left to right so I believe some were labelled in error:
LEFT DP
RIGHT DP
Also x-rayed her hocks. Vet said there are mild changes to her hocks but absolutely nothing out of the ordinary or dramatic. Feet showed her history of laminitis, but again nothing to explain what's happening. Sent the x-rays for a second opinion to the vet college and they had the same opinion. Vet watched her on soft ground and she appeared sound. Sent her hair for 5 panel QH genetic testing, mainly to rule out PSSM1. All tests came back negative.
Showed the vet how she went on gravel. At this point we're thinking laminitis again and toe pain. We blocked her front right heel and she showed dramatic improvement- looked completely sound on the right and really lame on the left. Blocked her front right toe which didn't give any additional improvement. So perhaps she's bruising/stressing her toes while she's taking weight off the heels.
Sorry for the novel but this horse has been quite confusing this year! I'm not happy about the definitive heel pain but it's certainly better than having no idea what's going on/wrongly thinking it's her toes. Of course, we aren't sure what's causing it. An MRI is the next step and we are looking into the logistics and cost of that. Given the fact that she's so much better on soft footing I'm leaning towards a navicular or joint issue. She's also much better with shoes, so I'm confident we can cover up the lameness with shoeing, but it certainly doesn't seem to improve it in the long run. And I don't want to be jumping her with a band-aid fix.
Does anyone have any experience with this? I am wondering if she can be managed barefoot, so at least when she's sore I'll know about it versus covering up her pain with shoes. Or perhaps we need to shoe her up as best we can to make her as comfortable as possible and just semi-retire her to light work. No matter what I just want what's best for her. I of course need to talk with my farrier further, who is excellent and very open to discussion/different options, but any advice would be great.
Thanks
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