suspected LH suspensory ligament injury...

glitterfuzz

glitterfuzz

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My horse has had problems recently with his pelvis being out of line. I can tell when it needs manipulation as my saddle feels like its tilting left. I have my Mctimony person out and she fixes it and all is ok for a while. I have spoken to my vet about this today and he thinks theres a possiblilty this is being caused by a slight problem with his suspensory ligament.
My horse is sound when you trot him up but on small circle he looks irregular, but not lame. He doesnt track up proerly with the leg in question, so is doing a slightly shorter stride (by about 6-8 inches).

So my reason for posting is to find out if anyone else has had a sound horse that actually has a suspensory problem and how long it took to fix! We are off to the vets for investigation. Im expecting box rest, controlled exercise and possibly shock wave therapy. Does anyone know the cost of shock wave??
 
my horse appeared sound and both equine vet and physio found no problem.she had problems with both hind suspensories and had surgery,3 shock waves and box rest for 1 month then small paddock rest.had to go to rossdales and several trips back.cant remember cost as insured but in total several thousand.
 
It took me 6 months to convince my vet my horse was unsound as she was not unsound just not right. Few things with suspensory damage is they are more likely to show on a circle and also in soft ground such as school surface rather than on concrete. It is interesting what you say about the suspensory problems causing the problems with the pelvis as after speaking to vets and specialists suspensory damage (unless a strain) is usually secondary to something else. Foot balance, teeth are both things to check as obviously if either are wrong they will cause the horse to compensate in its movement elsewhere.

When you are referred ask them to scan the suspensory (just normal scan) rather than them jumping straight in with bone scanning or mri, it doesnt always show up anything but its a much cheaper diagnosis than the other options and my vets who I think may be your vets to knowing where you are refused to. Infact they were pretty useless and I wasted almost 2k with them before pushing for a referral to animal health trust. If it is more of a performance loss rather than obvious lameness I would go to a specialist straight away.

Fingers crossed its nothing serious

Terri
 
agree with that.my horses foot balance was likely cause and she had secondary back pain.likely she had been not right for ages and also passed a 5 stage vetting.it was only because she was new to me and we pursued things that it was discovered.
 
My chap had suspected suspensory strain in both hind limbs. Shock wave, no box rest and 4 years later although with a new mum, still sound and still competing happily. In fact he was so much more forward after treatment so, I think that despite passing a 5 stage when I bought him, the problem had been there for some time.

Good luck.
 
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