Side bone. X Rays pics

ROMANY 1959

ROMANY 1959

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Any one had similar issues with happy field sound result..( My Ex driving horses) current owner is devastated, Vet says we have to wait and see, not field sound at moment, this all happened in last 6 weeks. If he is not field sound to retire, then the other option is PTS ..He is ID x Gypsy Va, 17h, age 18.
One Bute a day at moment. Not insured now. We have between us, owned him 11 years
 

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Is that both fronts? can't see any markers.
I've seen xrays of worse whose owners still have them in work, albeit unshod.
 
Well that’s a decent sidebone!
I’ve known plenty of horses working happily with sidebone, but you do often have to give them plenty of time to form and settle. I don’t think all is lost yet. Keep the pain killer going and just rest the horse, it may take a few months.
 
We had a Police Horse with a sidetone bigger than that, as a 4yo. It was so big on one foreleg that you could see the bump from just looking, no need for an x ray (but we did have x rays too). He was a bit on-off for a while, at which point he was just in straight line walk work. Once it settled down, he did everything for about another 10 years. He was a good jumper and dressage horse as well as a hard worker.

It did get him in the end, he was on increasing Bute and restricted work, which kept him going for a while, but in the end had to retire.
 
He is having remedial shoes now. Out for 4 hours in day. In rest on deep bed. He is on a busy yard so plenty to watch. As he is a nosy boy. Vet did say. Bute for next month. Then re asses.
 
I have a very big horse with side bone. He did come sound but has to be managed carefully. You need a good farrier who will take time to balance the horse properly. Mine has broad well on the outside to support him and is on a short cycle. I try to keep his weight down and he never trots on the roads.
 
I had a horse with sidebone and ringbone that stayed sound in light work until he was 18. It was hock arthritis that got him in the end.
 
1 bute a day is not enough to be effective in a big horse IMO- I would want 1 twice daily and see if that helps his comfort
 
One of mine has floating side bone in one front and the normal kind in the other.

He gets a bit short in front when the ground gets hard. We have re taken his shoes off as have found some brilliant hoof boots for him an she is striding out alot better.

I would rethink the remedial shoeing and discuss shoes off and boots and pads.

Mine is also 16:3 and about 740 kilos so not a light weight
 
I just don't know if I would do any remedial shoeing with sidebone, with my horse it caused more sidebone than it fixed

Normal shoes and decent balance would have been better in hindsight, which is obviously a wonderful thing, I wonder if this would work better for yours also
 
Because they are photos of a screen taken not quite straight that means that it might not be quite right in dimensions other than the obvious left hand tilt. So with no xray markers I would chat to vet/farrier about ML balance as they can view the originals.
 
You beat me to it! I was just about to post the same.

It has been niggling me for some time that something was not quite right with my horse. Suspected arthritis or laminitis. Took him to lameness expert vet who struggled to see anything but said he did look a bit lame on off fore on a bend. I asked for X-rays as knew I would be back again in a few weeks/ months.

And this is what we found:

6C7005AB-18C3-4B9B-AA3B-75614E1E4F7B.jpeg
it explained a lot.

Horse is 20ish.
 
Your balance issues aren't as bad, but they are still there. Look at the bottom of the pedal bone, and from what I can see, it doesn't lie parallel with the shoe. It's a lot worse in the OP's horse.

Hopefully both these horses will improve with being shod to correct the imbalance that the x rays have disclosed.

Out of interest, have either of your vets commented on lateral balance?

.
 
Mine hasn’t although has given me the pics to give to my farrier (who is due next week). Side views:

3E800EB8-8D2A-4B03-8349-A2A7BDE050D6.jpeg
 
I don’t think you can really comment on the balance of those x rays without them being marked up. I have two totally different x rays of Boggles right fore taken on same day, due to how he was standing on the block.
 
Michen said:
I don’t think you can really comment on the balance of those x rays without them being marked up. I have two totally different x rays of Boggles right fore taken on same day, due to how he was standing on the block.
Click to expand...

You can see the pedal bone and the shoe, Michen. If you look at the bottom edge of the pedal bone on each side and then look at the distance between it and the shoe, then to my eye neither of those horses are balanced, because those distances should be equal.

I would be hopeful in both cases that getting the pedal bone parallel with the shoe will help their soundness.

.
 
Our vet, Said LB was acceptable, it is just the way the image was taken.. he is having Bute am & pm now Typical not covered with insurance after a terrible episode last winter with abscess in both fronts . We are hoping he will be field sound at least, as we do have a retirement nanny job for him if he can cope. He is now having shoes which help his heels, with lockdown I have not been able to visit, so just goi g on conversations with his owner now
 
ROMANY 1959 said:
Our vet, Said LB was acceptable, it is just the way the image was taken.. he is having Bute am & pm now Typical not covered with insurance after a terrible episode last winter with abscess in both fronts . We are hoping he will be field sound at least, as we do have a retirement nanny job for him if he can cope. He is now having shoes which help his heels, with lockdown I have not been able to visit, so just goi g on conversations with his owner now
Click to expand...

Ultimately the vet is the only one qualified to interpret x rays and will have looked at thousands of them. If you have any reason to doubt them you can always ask for a second opinion.
 
ycbm said:
You can see the pedal bone and the shoe, Michen. If you look at the bottom edge of the pedal bone on each side and then look at the distance between it and the shoe, then to my eye neither of those horses are balanced, because those distances should be equal.

I would be hopeful in both cases that getting the pedal bone parallel with the shoe will help their soundness.

.
Click to expand...

Not in the second pic of the OPs you can't?
 
I meant left one, too early for me obviously!
457af607-5fc6-4506-bd5e-04a91ee5d163-jpeg.50079
 
Yes ..... difficult to see the balance on that one. assuming it came from the vet like that, it's pretty inexcusable imo, to take an x ray in which is impossible to see the foot balance when you are exploring potential lameness issues :(

Especially since you could find sidebone on a large proportion of sound horses if you went looking for it, and it's often not the cause of the unsoundness.

.
 
Late mare was diagnosed with Sidebone and Osteoarthritis in 2017, in a nutshell, she had 6 months off, moved to a yard with flatter fields, came back into light hacking for maybe another year, before being fully retired until Dec 2019, when she went down in the field and needed help getting back up, so I made the call.

She was on minimum 1 danilon a day that entire time, and a high spec joint supplement, although her sidebone was a lot smaller than your chaps, but she did has osteoarthritis on top.

Here's an x-ray of one of her fronts for those interested, I'm sure the eagle eyed among you will be able to spot the osteoarthritis too. Other front foot was pretty much the same:

-u152-2_2665230117r.jpg

Overall, she was field sound for most of the time between diagnosis and the end. She still had the odd hooley, and loved to throw some very impressive flying bucks and kicks when she was feeling particularly good. Toward the end, she was starting to become visibly uncomfortable on rutted ground, or if she had to walk horizontally across a slope (something which has previously only been an issue on roads/concrete).

I'm rambling on a bit here, but I hope it helps in some way.
 
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