the hard decision!

Stop all the meds, get her on a low sugar/high fibre diet and get her shoes off. Get your farrier to talk to Nic Barker. Pain is for a purpose - it's to stop her overusing injured tissue. You'll need to know how much pain she is in so that you can see how much she is progressing. (Obviously I don't include being in severe pain, but that's unlikely with this disease unless she is made to do work that she is not ready to do).

Put her on a lead and walk her on smooth tarmac roads like a dog, to build up the back half of her feet. If her frogs don't touch the floor, put her in boots and pads to stimulate the frogs until they do. And walk her in a sand arena if she can manage that and you have access to one.

If she's sound in hand, ride her in walk until she is sound in trot. Keep her working on any surface she is sound on, she needs movement to cure her feet.

She could be sound in 3 months like mine was, and jumping next year like mine was. At the very least, you will know in 3 months whether she is likely to come right or not.

Have you looked at the horses on Rockley's blog and what they are doing now? There are so many of them that this year they have hired Milton Keynes Equestrian Centre for their annual get together.
 
Quote - Pain is for a purpose - it's to stop her overusing injured tissue. You'll need to know how much pain she is in so that you can see how much she is progressing.

How can you measure the amount of pain - apologies if a stupid question
 
Tiffany said:
Quote - Pain is for a purpose - it's to stop her overusing injured tissue. You'll need to know how much pain she is in so that you can see how much she is progressing.

How can you measure the amount of pain - apologies if a stupid question
Click to expand...

IMO

A horse who short strides a bit is not usually in a lot of pain. A horse who refuses to move is in terrible pain IF it moves (but not necessarily in any pain at all if it stands still). Horses with "navicular" spectrum lameness, in my experience (and I have owned four) have a relatively mild lameness, (normally it seems to be scored at about 2 out of 10) . They are happy usually enough to move, and the lameness tends to wear off to a greater or lesser extent with exercise.

Interestingly, many vets (and even top hospital vets) will continue to insist that xrays showing damage to the navicular bone will account for the lameness even though it wears off with exercise, which is a clear indication that soft tissue is involved. The bone does not change with exercise, so how can it account for the lameness, when it wears off with exercise? Of course now we have MRI we know that almost all horses with navicular bone damage which are MRI'd have soft tissue damage, and that it is that soft tissue damage that is actually causing the horse to be lame. That's great news for the horse, because the soft tissue damage can be fixed much more easily than the bone damage.

You measure the improvement by how lame they appear to be when they start the work session, how lame they are at the finish of the work session, and (as they get better) how quickly they come totally sound after starting a work session. As long as the lameness progressively disappears, you know you are on the right track. If it gets worse, you stop whatever you were doing that made it get worse and reconsider.

It would be very clear within 12 weeks whether the OPs mare can be helped or not. At the end of that time, if she has not shown improvement, I would completely support her having the mare put down.
 
cptrayes said:
IMO

A horse who short strides a bit is not usually in a lot of pain. A horse who refuses to move is in terrible pain IF it moves (but not necessarily in any pain at all if it stands still). Horses with "navicular" spectrum lameness, in my experience (and I have owned four) have a relatively mild lameness, (normally it seems to be scored at about 2 out of 10) . They are happy usually enough to move, and the lameness tends to wear off to a greater or lesser extent with exercise.

Interestingly, many vets (and even top hospital vets) will continue to insist that xrays showing damage to the navicular bone will account for the lameness even though it wears off with exercise, which is a clear indication that soft tissue is involved. The bone does not change with exercise, so how can it account for the lameness, when it wears off with exercise? Of course now we have MRI we know that almost all horses with navicular bone damage which are MRI'd have soft tissue damage, and that it is that soft tissue damage that is actually causing the horse to be lame. That's great news for the horse, because the soft tissue damage can be fixed much more easily than the bone damage.

You measure the improvement by how lame they appear to be when they start the work session, how lame they are at the finish of the work session, and (as they get better) how quickly they come totally sound after starting a work session. As long as the lameness progressively disappears, you know you are on the right track. If it gets worse, you stop whatever you were doing that made it get worse and reconsider.

It would be very clear within 12 weeks whether the OPs mare can be helped or not. At the end of that time, if she has not shown improvement, I would completely support her having the mare put down.
Click to expand...

Interesting about the soft tissue damage. I suppose its due to over compensating in other areas of the body due to pain in another part. My horse is unlevel when I first go into trot, but then sound after a circuit in the school and stays sound for the rest of the session. And then when tied up outside his stable on concrete for half an hour and put in his stable can be practically hopping for a stride or two and then could pass a vets trot up afterwards. Guessing this is the coffin joint/possible navicular problems he has and he just seizes up. You are totally right though, how can the 'diseased' navicular bone make a horse lame and sound in the course of one session, it had to be due to other issues. Never thought of it like that before. But on the other hand isn't a horse stiff with arthritis and once warmed up the pain goes?

As you are obviously a vet I have a question for you. In the case of arthritis in the foot for example how can you differentiate between stiffness which makes a horse appear unlevel and pain in other areas due to soft tissue damage making a horse lame???? Not disagreeing with what you say but how does it work???? I can't get my head around it. Does a horse look the same when unlevel/lame from arthritis due to stiffness as it would if it was unlevel/lame from pain? Surely if its stiffness it hurts anyway???? Not being combative I am merely very interested in this point. If its lame through pain I guess it would remain lame. If its lame through stiffness it would go away when ridden? Is that how it works?
 
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cptrayes said:
IMO

A horse who short strides a bit is not usually in a lot of pain. A horse who refuses to move is in terrible pain IF it moves (but not necessarily in any pain at all if it stands still). Horses with "navicular" spectrum lameness, in my experience (and I have owned four) have a relatively mild lameness, (normally it seems to be scored at about 2 out of 10) . They are happy usually enough to move, and the lameness tends to wear off to a greater or lesser extent with exercise.

Interestingly, many vets (and even top hospital vets) will continue to insist that xrays showing damage to the navicular bone will account for the lameness even though it wears off with exercise, which is a clear indication that soft tissue is involved. The bone does not change with exercise, so how can it account for the lameness, when it wears off with exercise? Of course now we have MRI we know that almost all horses with navicular bone damage which are MRI'd have soft tissue damage, and that it is that soft tissue damage that is actually causing the horse to be lame. That's great news for the horse, because the soft tissue damage can be fixed much more easily than the bone damage.

You measure the improvement by how lame they appear to be when they start the work session, how lame they are at the finish of the work session, and (as they get better) how quickly they come totally sound after starting a work session. As long as the lameness progressively disappears, you know you are on the right track. If it gets worse, you stop whatever you were doing that made it get worse and reconsider.

It would be very clear within 12 weeks whether the OPs mare can be helped or not. At the end of that time, if she has not shown improvement, I would completely support her having the mare put down.
Click to expand...

Makes sense, I thought there was actually a way of measuring pain. Some horses, like people, obviously have a higher pain threshold than others which shows up in the level of lameness.
 
Faracat said:
By the horse's soundness. :)
Click to expand...

If the horse isn't sound it would indicate discomfort although not a true measure of pain. Suppose that is measured by level of lameness. I think my girl must have quite a high pain threshold because when she had an abscess recently she was just short on that back leg. Another horse on yard 2 months earlier could hardly walk.
 
Well I think i may be starting this route on Thursday, see post 'horse not quite right in front' - the barefoot theory is very interesting but my boy is an appy and i am not sure if his feet would cope with being unshod but it would definitely be worth a try if this is what the problem turns out to be OP let me know how you get on
 
Breed should make no difference. I have an unshod TB and she's fine and you've probably heard all the rubbish that is spouted about TB hooves.
 
Faracat said:
Breed should make no difference. I have an unshod TB and she's fine and you've probably heard all the rubbish that is spouted about TB hooves.
Click to expand...

You are absolutely right. I've worked with some fab appy feet - and fab TB feet too.

But if a breed has a tendancy to be shod young and fed rubbish (like QH's, TBs, WBs) this can impact on later attempts to bring barefoot. Doesn't make it impossible, just a longer job.
 
About twenty years ago my parents bought me a 14.2hh TBx mare who had lots of BSJA winnings. Unfortunately 9 months down the line she was diagnosed with navicular. We gave her away as a brood mare. She didn't become lame at anytime whilst pregnant. However the woman we gave her to then sold her for £600 as a riding horse! With hindsight I feel the best decision would have been to have her pts as we couldn't to have two, riding her obviously caused her pain and having passed her on we lost complete control of her welfare and have no idea where she ended up. Trust noone!
 
To Lucy Priory - what would you class as rubbish feed? he had crap feet when i bought him seven years ago all broken etc but they are now in good condition so hopefully they would stand up to being unshod
To Basilcob - i also made this mistake with my mare although she went out on loan as a companion and was sold, i got her back eventually and had her PTS which is what i should have done in the first place, she was given a 17% chance of recovery from Newmarket so she as in a pretty bad way foreleg wise although she looked the picture of health.

I have always said that if my boy was given a low recovery chance i would PTS but its easy to say that when there is nothing going on, now I cannot get it out of my head that he will go the same way and i am going to have to make that decision and it makes me feel sick to be honest, but I have to get a grip as things could be far worse, like my children being sick etc but he is my rock and has got me through a lot of crap times in my life so i have just have everything crossed.
 
I knew I'd get asked that :-) As we all know horses are hind gut fermenters. Many of today's modern feeds don't respect that and do much to upset the hind gut. What each horse can tolerate will vary, but many do better with a higher fibre, lower sugar/starch feed. And it shows in their hooves.

Crumbling hooves are often attached to horses which are not receive the optimum diet for them. Ditto flat/thin soles etc
 
Ok, he has been having pegasus basic nuts and happy hoof, but now just on the happy hoof, grazing thru the night and SMALL haylage net!! Happy hoof is highfibre/low sugar right??
 
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