spavin but not as I knew it...

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ducktails

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I once again need some help...

We have just got back from the vets for our 3rd lameness work up of the year and have finally come to a conclusion of spavin, kind of.

Basically all hock x rays are clear and both my local practice and newmarket agree that there are no boney changes, however the mare is coming sound when the hock joint is blocked out. My vet has therefore treated her with steroid injections on the last two work ups but they have made little or no difference to her. The latest diagnosis from today that there is inflammation in the hock joint but it is below the bone (sorry cant remember the proper name) so there will be no boney changes that we can see and the reason that she is not responding is because the steroid is not reaching where it needs to reach... so what now?

My vet wants to try tildren and then has basically said if tildren doesnt work she is a lost cause and we go for loss of use. The mare is only 7 but she doesnt have great hind leg confo (very straight, say 7 out of 10 for straightness) so the worry is that she will not stand up to any amount of work in the future, but I will try every option for her..

So other than for someone to blubber away at so late at night u might think what do i want help with, well..

1) has anyone had any experience of this before, horse is blocking sound to hock blocks but no changes to actually indicate spavin
2) do you think i should carry on down the diagnostic route incase my vet is wrong?
3) Tildren?? yay, nay? from what i can make out it will never be a complete fix and once we are past the 12 months claim i will be left paying for the tildren treatments my self
4) Loss of use, Im with E&L (I can here you groan already) any tips? In an ideal world the tildren wil work and i wont need to claim for it but if the last few months are to go by we dont live in an ideal world :O(

Cheers for getting this far, as always any advice appreciated I really love this mare and I want to give her every chance possible.

x
 
My horse was diagnosed with BS aged 10. It broke my heart but it is not the end of things as you may think. My horse is currently jumping/schooling/fun riding and XC and I have a ODE on Saturday and a fun ride on Sunday. He was treated with intra articular injections with HA and had a course of adequan. Then he had 3 lots of tildren. He was virtually sound throughout treatment, although he had only presented as 2/10th lame n/h and 3/10th lame o/h. Then about two months after the last tildren treatment he went funny in right canter again (swapping hind legs on circle) and the vet came out and declared the tildren hadn't worked. I was very upset and dissapointed. he suggested a bute trial but due to all the icy weather we had at the start of the year I never did do the bute trial. Instead I give him one bute in his tea the night before an event and two in the morning for breakfast he is 17.1 and approx 600kg. He is fine with this and 9 times out of 10 is okay without the bute, but I don't take the chance anymore.

The tildren did make him sick after each session but I still feel it was worth it in the end.

Please ditch E&L on your next renewal. They are not worth it. NFU have been very good and paid out on all treatment which has totalled nearly £3K. x
 
My mare has spavins which showed up on x-rays 1st time but not 2nd time when re-done 8 months later. However showed up on bone scan.

Would it maybe possible to get a bone scan on her back end should be covered by your insurance. It would show up any hot spots in the hock area and anything missed my the xrays to be sure. My scan cost £1200 so still leaves money for treatment.

As for treatment we have had everything only thing that worked was Tildren which again is covered by insurance however i know other horses where it has not worked for. A new treatment that is also a option if Tildren doesnt work is IRAP therpy. My girl has only had one lot of tildren and vet said thats all she needs so depends on the horse and how they react to it.

Im also with E&L and they have paid for all her treatments so far. But you need to keep ringing them to get them to hurry up as very slow to pay up!

One thing you havent said is what type of shoes has your girl got on? It may help her having wedges or lateral extensions.
 
ducktails - that's how our tale started... suspected bone spavin.

Then, it turned out she had a tendon laceration in a strange location (can't be seen on x-rays) that basically hadn't been treated for a year. She is only 5 and may never be ridden again.
 
oooo don't you hate it when you lose what you have just typed... in brief, cheers for everyone who has replied..

I will be questioning about further diagnostics as I do not like the idea of treating for spavin when we are not sure that is actually what it is. I believe that rather unadventurously spavin without the boney changes is called blind spavin or occult spavin, i would have thought that mri scanning would be more beneficial that scintography (sp) as do you not see more from the mri where as the bone scan would only show hot spots? Also am i right in thinking insurance will only pay 50% at most of the cost of these because it is diagnostic?

Abigail, she currently has lateral extensions, I was thinking today would I be best eventually to remove the shoes, as surely the shoes increase the level of concussion that the back legs experience?

Applecart, the steroid injections did not make any difference to her, my vet feels it is because the problem is deeper than the steroid can reach and therefore tildren will be a better option because it is obviously intravenous. I hope it doesn't make her too poorly though.

My mare is sound on the straight it is only on the left rein that she becomes very unsound, she was negative to the suspensory nerve block though and positive to the hock block. Im at a loss, I would give her kidney to get her sound, although i may have to yet if e and l dont pay out hehe. I will definately be inquiring about switching at my next renewal, I can already imagine the trouble we will have if we take the LOU route :O(

Applecart, sorry to sound stupid but what would the purpose of the bute test be? to see if it is an option long term??

Tasel - that is my nightmare / concern, the vets seem so certain to go down the spavin route just from the shape of the back legs but I don't want them to be missing something else. Where is the tendon laceration? I do hope your young lady comes right, its just heart braking and so exhausting isnt it. My mare was written off as naughty at the start of all this, but I knew deep down there was something wrong.
 
I think you are refering to subchondral bone pain? This would be visible on scinitigraphy as well as MRI. I agree MRI would be better but not many places go that high up the leg and I suggest you find out what your insurance will pay for first. If there was no improvent to the steroids then I would definately want more diagnostics done to include a minimum of ultrasound scan of entire hook region and suspensory origin.
I have seen many cases of spavin with no/minimal xray changes but they have all responded to intra-articular steroids.
 
From what you have said, I don't think it sounds like spavin. If there are arthritic changes between the first bone above the cannon and the cannon, there is discomfort and lameness until the bones fuse (and there appears to be some disagreement in vet. circles about how common spontaneous fusing is). If, however the next joint is involved, because this is an articulating joint, the prognosis is not so great.

X-rays can be very helpful or not helpful at all, such is the nature of boney changes and the correlation between changes and degrees of lameness. They are often not consistent. I would see if any different diagnostics tools are available.

It's awful not knowing what's the matter with them. I do hope something fixable comes to light soon.
 
ducktails - my mare is also written down as naughty (although, in her case that may be justified as she had already been naughty before).

Basically, tendon laceration just means that a tendon has been severed somewhat - an injury that can happen to any horse which normally means a period of rest and it should heal (it's worse when it happens on the foreleg though, I heard). Our's is on the back leg, and it should have been fine after a period of rest - if only the laceration was not at the origin of the tendon itself which is apparently a rarity and known to heal either very slowly or never. She is happy and not in pain, but it may be uncomfortable when she's ridden (I know as I have a similar thing in my arm - talking about horses mirroring their owners). Anyway, the uncomfortable feeling combined with my mare's "exhuberant" nature doesn't make her the most rideable horse there is. The vet just seems to be quite negative about it all.

Soft tissue injury can't be seen on X-rays really... and even ultrasound does not show too much either. Keyhole surgery seems to be the only way to really "see" the injury.
 
My horse completely severed his o/h fetlock joint open and severed two tendons in the process (accident on fun ride) and i was told by the consultant at the hospital that these were of no consequence because they were flexor tendons or extensor tendons (can't remember which sorry). Had he made a recovery he would still have been capable of jumping/schooling again.
 
applecart14 - I think it's extensor tendons... which is what my mare injured. Unfortunately, she injured herself at the origin (proximal aspect) of the tendons which seems to be a bit of a fluke accident in medical circles - not many vets have apparently seen such an injury. Apparently, the healing in that area is "frustratingly poor in the horse", and we've pretty much exhausted all options...
 
Posted on your other thread:

Which vets did you use in Newmarket?

Did they try nerve blocking upper and lower hock to isolate?

The problem is, the hock is a huge joint and has lots of different little bones. The only way to really see what is going on inside is MRI, and even that is only about roughly 70- 80% accurate.
 
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