sacroiliac injuries-prognosis?

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clairefeekerry1

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my 7 yr old has ben diagosed with some kind of SI issue. i'll use that term lightly as the vets (specialists) really dont know. absoultely nothing has showed on the bone scan and no response to nerve blocking of that area. they have diagnosed through a process of elimnation and the fact his movement is consistant with an injury to that are. he also shows no ill response when that area is poked,prodded or manipulated. when ridden in trot he has a very severe skipping action with his hind legs. he is sound lunged.trotted up. vet has said 2 months box rest followed by 1 month field rest. i'm going to give him til march/april off. what prognosis could i be looking at, vets are not sure. also is it normal that absoultely nothing shows on the bone scan for this area?? the vets best guess is soft tissue injury but again would have thought this would have showed on bone scan?
 
My mare was written off with a sacro problem. She didn't look like she had any power from behind, started slightly sitting when mounted and then started to go lame when ridden. Wasn't lame in in hand assessments.

She did have an uptake on a bone scan and her way of going totally changed when the area was nerve blocked and she went sound.

I was told the only way she'd have a useful ridden life was regular steroid injection into the area. Sadly these haven't worked, but we;ve been told she'll be ok to be a mummy. At the moment she's just a field ormament.
 
I looked after quite a bad one that arguably got worse with the prescribed treatment. 12 weeks later as lame if not worse. So turned out on (in) to a PP track and it got sound very quickly and returned to full work.

But every case is different esp if the vets are not really sure...........
 
my mare was just prescribed 2 weeks field rest by the way before gradually being brought back into work. No box rest.
 
mine has been turned out for 2 months field rest whilst diagnosis was going on and was getting worse hence why they have said box rest. however we have no idea if rest is going to work. the specialist vet is confused as to why he can be so lame ridden, yet nothing in hand and nothing at all showing up on bone scan. they were on about sending him to sue dyson however, i have nearly used up all my insurance money (he has had numerous x rays, scans, nerve blocks etc as well as the bone scan) so this is unlikely to be an option. i just dont understand what kind of injury he could have that woldn't show up after all this diagostics given that he is so lame
 
Mine had mild sacro Illiac problem which wasn't diagnosed till about 3-4months after occurrence gave him 3 months off and came back into work fab no more problems :D
Reason it took so long for diagnosis was due to nasty cuts immediately (he wrapped and rolled himself in barbed wire) so he had a month off initially then very light work it was only when we started to introduce jumping again we saw a problem :(
 
this is also similar to mine, he didnt initally display SI issues at first hnece the drawn out process and 2 different vets practices involved. its just odd that i have had every diagosis going pretty much with zero response. the physio confirmed he felt very tight in that area and she is coming out every 4 weeks to try help
 
becca_norrey said:
Mine had mild sacro Illiac problem which wasn't diagnosed till about 3-4months after occurrence gave him 3 months off and came back into work fab no more problems :D
Reason it took so long for diagnosis was due to nasty cuts immediately (he wrapped and rolled himself in barbed wire) so he had a month off initially then very light work it was only when we started to introduce jumping again we saw a problem :(
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can i just ask what is classed as mild and did you have bone scans or anything to confirm??
 
didn't have scans as we live on the IOM, and would have had to send horse to UK etc. and couldn't have afforded the bills!
I say mild as it was more like a stiffness and totally sound on the ground, but this could be as it initailly had the time to start healing, may not have been initially but I have seen horses with it much sorer than he was.
Both vet and chiropractor diagnosed it as canter was becoming very much quarters in as well as the lameness, and chiropractor worked with him as there was no regular physio visits to the island at the time.
First 2 vets I had out told me to work him through it as it sounded like a stiffness too, but some of our vets over here are totally clueless!!! :rolleyes:
Hope this helps. Good luck with your horsey!!!
 
I know of one that had an injury to his sacroiliac joint and had stem cell and within 2 months good as new and sound ready to go again!
 
Hello!

Has anyone (physio) checked his whole spine AND extremities (hips, shoulders, hocks, fetlocks, feet)? Why the fixation with the sacro-iliac if it's showing no results? The weight bearing areas when ridden is surely mid-lower thoracics, and these will, if painful, show an altered gait pattern which will ultimately start looking like an SI problem when it's not...

If he didn't initially display SI symtoms first, what did he show?

The frustrating thing about joint mechanics is that if they are dysfunctional in their movement patterns there is no imaging out there which will show that...

Good luck!!!:)
 
clairefeekerry1 said:
mine has been turned out for 2 months field rest whilst diagnosis was going on and was getting worse hence why they have said box rest. however we have no idea if rest is going to work. the specialist vet is confused as to why he can be so lame ridden, yet nothing in hand and nothing at all showing up on bone scan. they were on about sending him to sue dyson however, i have nearly used up all my insurance money (he has had numerous x rays, scans, nerve blocks etc as well as the bone scan) so this is unlikely to be an option. i just dont understand what kind of injury he could have that woldn't show up after all this diagostics given that he is so lame
Click to expand...

Hi

I've just had the results of a Bone Scan for mine and they've identified inflammation in the SI on the left side, her having been diagnosed with a Kissing Spine by X-ray before that, which when nerve blocked, didn't make any difference.

She, like yours is sound in hand, on lunge, loose, everywhere except when ridden. When ridden she's pretty fine in walk and canter, though trips up a lot, and doesn't come 'through' with her front legs as much as she does when unridden. But in trot she looks and feels paralysed. When you watch her, she just stops bending her hinds and grinds to a halt.

I've had her since she was a 2yr old and she's always had trouble bending properly in hand... felt much worse under saddle, and she's thrown all her saddles to the left... which sort of explains it.

She's been off work for 3 months apart from various test rides. Vet has said to give her another month off, then lunge her in a pessoa for a month and then ride thereafter - work on building up her muscle and topline. She's just had a steroid injection in the area which may last her 6 months.

I hope it works, she's only 5yrs old!!
 
Mine was diagnosed only about 12 months after the slip in the field that caused it.

About 2 months after the slip she developed a locking stifle, then I laid her off for the winter for 3 months, then brought her back so slowly the following year that the sacroiliac injury was supported by the amount of muscle around it. It was only when she went lame in front 11 months after the initial slip and I had to give her 2 weeks off that the Si problem showed itself.

Mine was also terrible in trot -she felt as though she was pulling herself along, and was constantly stumbling at the back - there was no power in her back end at all. She was fine in walk but I didn't dare canter in case she fell over. In hand, there was no lameness at all in walk or trot and her back end looked perfectly normal.

To cut a long story short, she has just had 2 months off with an unrelated knee injury. I assumed that when she came back into work, because she had lost so much muscle (she was quite fit when the knee injury happened) that she would be unrideable again. This does not seem to be the case and I am delighted and very surprised!

In my case, my horse has had no treatment for this problem apart from excercise. When in work I ride her 5 or 6 times a week and thsi summer took her swimming every week, which I am convinced played a major part in helping this injury. However, if I decide to lay her off for any length of time (I don't normally ride for 3 months in the winter) I have to be accept that she may come back into work very weak in her back end and therefore need up to 3 months steady fittening work before I can take her ridden showing, have lessons etc.
 
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