Talk to me about MRIs

[Jim bob]

My horse might be having an MRI in the next few weeks/ months, due to ongoing lameness.

Just wanting to know what made you decide to have it done? And if anyone decided not too why?

What did you find out?

Aswell as the prognosis of any issues found and treatments too?

How many would do it again?

We are looking at soft tissue injury, I am aware of Rockley Farm and by tb is barefoot at present.

I am paying for this myself too.

 

[be positive]

Ask if the treatment will be any different if you spend in the region of £1200 on the MRI rather than going on what evidence you have so far, presumably nerve blocks and xrays have been fairly inconclusive so far.
I had one MRI'd and all it did was confirm what was already known, made no difference to treatment and took a lump of insurance money that could have been better spent elsewhere in my view, it was more of a because we can than because we have to, once the horse had been admitted it can be hard to stop the "essential diagnostics".

I would say if you are going to do one then waiting months seems pointless by then you are either going to know the treatment, whatever that may be, is working by the clinical signs or you will be looking to go in a different direction anyway and will an MRI make any difference to that.
As he has been lame for some time now with possibly a few red herrings along the way, just checked your previous posts and see that he no longer blocks to the foot, going for an MRI on the foot when he may have something higher up causing some of the lameness seems a waste of money, you need to know that it is definitely in the foot before doing it, so it is either a full workup to get to the root cause or you may end up with a huge bill and still nothing conclusive.

He seems as if he is a rather fragile horse that has suffered many ailments over the last few years including laminitis, IBS, LV and thrush, have you considered just turning him away for 12 months somewhere to see if he can sort himself out, sometimes these tb's are just so difficult to fix that they are best left to their own devices for a while, he sounds rather similar to another ex racehorse that regularly featured in threads that was so badly damaged no amount of veterinary treatment or any amount of money could fix him, yours does not sound so bad as he is coping without shoes, if he were mine I would give him the rest of the summer and autumn out 24/7, take a break myself and see whether he will cope staying out over the winter, if he is comfortable in the field there is every chance he will be ok to start light work next spring, being out away from all the stresses of life may help both the IBS and the LV as long as where he goes is suitable.

 

[Boulty]

I had an MRI done as horse still wasn't right after several months of treatment so we wanted to see if there was something that we were missing and what sort of state the soft tissues of his front feet were in. As it turned out changes were quite subtle. Didn't really give us much now information to work with but also didn't find anything disastrous. My horse did end up at Rockley and is sounder now than he ever was before (sadly still doesn't like stones but he has cushings and is laminitis prone / grass sensitive so is not as easy as the majority of horses). A friend of mine had an MRI done for similar reasons of horse still being lame and not being convinced they'd got to the bottom of why horse was lame and the findings have altered the diagnosis, prognosis and treatment plan so for her it was definitely worth doing as she's now hoping for a much more positive outcome than she was initially.

 

[Jim bob]

Ask if the treatment will be any different if you spend in the region of £1200 on the MRI rather than going on what evidence you have so far, presumably nerve blocks and xrays have been fairly inconclusive so far.
I had one MRI'd and all it did was confirm what was already known, made no difference to treatment and took a lump of insurance money that could have been better spent elsewhere in my view, it was more of a because we can than because we have to, once the horse had been admitted it can be hard to stop the "essential diagnostics".

I would say if you are going to do one then waiting months seems pointless by then you are either going to know the treatment, whatever that may be, is working by the clinical signs or you will be looking to go in a different direction anyway and will an MRI make any difference to that.
As he has been lame for some time now with possibly a few red herrings along the way, just checked your previous posts and see that he no longer blocks to the foot, going for an MRI on the foot when he may have something higher up causing some of the lameness seems a waste of money, you need to know that it is definitely in the foot before doing it, so it is either a full workup to get to the root cause or you may end up with a huge bill and still nothing conclusive.

He seems as if he is a rather fragile horse that has suffered many ailments over the last few years including laminitis, IBS, LV and thrush, have you considered just turning him away for 12 months somewhere to see if he can sort himself out, sometimes these tb's are just so difficult to fix that they are best left to their own devices for a while, he sounds rather similar to another ex racehorse that regularly featured in threads that was so badly damaged no amount of veterinary treatment or any amount of money could fix him, yours does not sound so bad as he is coping without shoes, if he were mine I would give him the rest of the summer and autumn out 24/7, take a break myself and see whether he will cope staying out over the winter, if he is comfortable in the field there is every chance he will be ok to start light work next spring, being out away from all the stresses of life may help both the IBS and the LV as long as where he goes is suitable.

Hi,
I asked if the treatment would be different when the MRI was first mentioned and the vet said that until they know what it is their dealing with , there unable to tell me whether the treatment would be different.

I am going to ask the vet if they feel its still in the foot, as surely If it was he would have come sound or much sounder then he did do when we most recently blocked the hoof.

He has being described as 'delicate flower' by people before. The laminitis he never actually had from what we can tell , there was no real prove that he had it, eg xrays were clear for lami. When I thought he was showing all the signs and the vet came out I was always told that he doesn't have lami.

Thrush I have battled with him since I have had him. To be honest. When the LV came about in May last year he had from May til the end of the year off. First due to his legs looking sore and then the IBD came about. Personally I think the IBD came first and still find it very strange that before we moved to that yard there was no IBD or LV!! While he was doing no work from may til the end of the year, he was completely sound however due to the LV and IBD I chose not to work him. I cant have him live out in the winter, yard rules. I started very light work with him at the start of this year and we did 3 weeks of very light work before he came in from the field lame. However between feb and mid June I had being working him it was only after there was a big event at the yard that his lameness has become much worse!

 

[Michen]

This. I literally read your posts and it reminds me so much of what I went through. If I could do it again I would turn away for six months and certainly wouldn't spend any money on expensive diagnostics. And I would send him away as well, to somewhere with a big herd on lots of acres and just step back from the whole thing. Xx

Ask if the treatment will be any different if you spend in the region of £1200 on the MRI rather than going on what evidence you have so far, presumably nerve blocks and xrays have been fairly inconclusive so far.
I had one MRI'd and all it did was confirm what was already known, made no difference to treatment and took a lump of insurance money that could have been better spent elsewhere in my view, it was more of a because we can than because we have to, once the horse had been admitted it can be hard to stop the "essential diagnostics".

I would say if you are going to do one then waiting months seems pointless by then you are either going to know the treatment, whatever that may be, is working by the clinical signs or you will be looking to go in a different direction anyway and will an MRI make any difference to that.
As he has been lame for some time now with possibly a few red herrings along the way, just checked your previous posts and see that he no longer blocks to the foot, going for an MRI on the foot when he may have something higher up causing some of the lameness seems a waste of money, you need to know that it is definitely in the foot before doing it, so it is either a full workup to get to the root cause or you may end up with a huge bill and still nothing conclusive.

He seems as if he is a rather fragile horse that has suffered many ailments over the last few years including laminitis, IBS, LV and thrush, have you considered just turning him away for 12 months somewhere to see if he can sort himself out, sometimes these tb's are just so difficult to fix that they are best left to their own devices for a while, he sounds rather similar to another ex racehorse that regularly featured in threads that was so badly damaged no amount of veterinary treatment or any amount of money could fix him, yours does not sound so bad as he is coping without shoes, if he were mine I would give him the rest of the summer and autumn out 24/7, take a break myself and see whether he will cope staying out over the winter, if he is comfortable in the field there is every chance he will be ok to start light work next spring, being out away from all the stresses of life may help both the IBS and the LV as long as where he goes is suitable.

 

[Goldenstar]

I had a horse slightly unlevel it blocked to the foot .
The vet the most likely cause was a ligament tear on the outside of the foot ( lameness showed most when the affected leg was on the outside of a circle ).
MRI was needed to confirm the diagnosis .
I asked what the treatment was if MRI confirmed what the vet thought which was shoes off and three months box rest followed by gradual return to work .
So that's what we did .
Horse came sound .

 

[dressage_diva]

Really glad we did an MRI on my old boy (he was about 17 at the time). He had swerved out hacking when a pheasant ran in front of him and went hopping lame. Feared pedal bone fracture, but xrays all clear. Gave him time off and he came sound, brought him back into work slowly only for him to break down when we began trot work. Nerve blocks suggested pain was definitely below fetlock. Vets didn't know what problem was and suggested only way we could find out would be MRI. Ended up doing MRI and it revealed minor lesion of the DDFT. We were offered surgery with 50% success rate, but given his age I was reluctant to put him through surgery. Decided to retire him to the field (as field sound) but he wouldn't settle and seemed to miss work so ended up taking the risk and put him through arthroscopy with stem cell treatment and it was a huge success! He was given 50% chance of coming sound enough to ride and he did. Came back into light schooling (won a Prelim RC class the following year) and then year later retired to happy hacking 5/6 days a week. He has been doing this now (he is 21 now) until very recently when he was struck down by laminitis.

In my case I'm glad we did the MRI - it revealed the problem and it did give us a solution which I did decide to take. If we hadn't done that he would have been retired to field, but likely have had to be pts because he was likely to injure himself badly in the field the way he was pratting about!

Good luck with whatever decision you make.

 

[Pinkvboots]

I know you said his foot blocking out on the foot so basically the first nerve block? my horse did the same but she did infact have damage to the ddft just above the hoof at the back of the pastern , the thing with nerve blocks it does travel up slightly which is why they often do it in 2 stages on different days to get a clearer picture, has your horse had any sort of scan in that area?

she ended up have an mri just to rule out anything else going on before we proceeded to treat but unfortunately she had such a lot of scar tissue, the only option was steroid and she had cushings and ems so it was not an option for her so she was retired.