Shoulder arthritis in young horse

[tobiano1984]

4yo TB gelding just been diagnosed with arthritis of the shoulder, apparently rare and usually found in Shetlands. This is after ridiculous amounts of testing in hospital to try and diagnose bilateral front lameness, which started about 10 weeks ago seemingly for no reason. X-rays also identified KS but i think quite mild and there haven't been any symptoms.

The 2 combined means the prognosis from the vet isn't good. So I just wanted to hear if anyone has any experience of this they could share? Treatment, outcome, prognosis etc.

The horse raced on the flat as a 2yo and since then has been reschooled and happily working in the school, hacking, bit of jumping and dressage but certainly nothing heavy and the lameness came on for no particular reason.

 

[Andalucian]

I've seen early onset shoulder arthritis in a few Shetlands. They didn't improve sadly, sorry to say.

That said I've not seen it in a horse, I've often seen it as an initial guess by a vet, but on further testing it's never been the real problem.

 

[applecart14]

Sorry to hear about your horse. Not sure about the arthritis of the shoulder, but with the KS diagnosis, some horses will show signs of KS on xray but it doesn't mean to say they are suffering from in, particuarly as the horse has never shown any symptoms before now.

Spoke to my physio the other day and she was saying that basically with any xray just because something shows up, doesn't mean to say its causing a problem. For example, if you xrayed 100 horses you might find KS on say five, and out of five only one might actually have KS symptoms. Just something to bear in mind.

On the other side of the coin, you might have a horse suffering from hock pain. Upon xray there is nothing showing up, hocks are clean as a whistle but the horse remains lame. Nerve block the area and the horse is completely sound. Brusing and cartilage damage may not show on xray.

 

[Exploding Chestnuts]

The prognosis looks poor, you can't keep him forever as a field ornament, so either turn him away for six months in the hope he will "recover", [if we are assuming his problem is not shoulder arthritis], or have pts when you can arrange it.. This is the sort of decision owners have to make, and in such a young animal or even in an older one, it is still tough on the owner, but the horse knows nothing.

 

[tobiano1984]

He is being PTS today :-(

 

[applecart14]

He is being PTS today :-(

so sorry x