Thermal imaging results. Pictures.

[Elvis]

Yesterday we had the lovely Nathalie Bowles out from Solo to thermal image Elvis to get an idea of if and where there is any pain. The vets suspect low level pain somewhere in his back or hind end and had put in place an exercise programme to see if strengthening him up would help before going down the route of bute trials and x-rays.

So the day in pictures:

Elvis waiting patiently.

Photo time.

"Is it edible?"

Slight heat on the inside of his right pastern from previous injury, slight heat up leg from the ongoing healing process, but only minor temperature difference so really positive to see!

Heat down left hamstring.

Heat over sacroiliac joint, 3 degrees temperature difference so significant but unlikely to be a joint problem as there would be a higher temperature difference, more likely to be superficial and maybe linked with the ligaments or tendons.

Heat over withers was probably from a skylight, and since it was even on both sides it wasn't any cause for concern.


I've always said that Elvis is a hot horse, he's never needed much in the way of rugging despite having a thin coat, it's just him. I told Nathalie this and to her surprise his base general surface body temperature was 16/17 degrees, most horses are around 9 degrees. She said he was the hottest horse she'd ever scanned!

So overall there was no evidence of problems in the legs, all the joints were fine so that's good. The only notable heat was over the sacroiliac joint and down his left hamstring so it's thoughts these two are linked. Nathalie agreed that sticking with the vets exercise plan was best as nothing screamed out that a vet was needed sooner (he's booked for a week on Tuesday anyway)

So finally who else has had a horse with sacroiliac problems, what if anything could the vet do?

 

[Kelly1982]

My horse has sacroiliac problems and I was talking to my physio the other day and she said the sacrum will always show up hot anyway, it's whether it's hotter on one side that may indicate a problem. My horse had a bone scan and the left side was hotter.

My vets were actually pretty useless, once they discovered it wasn't kissing spines they didn't want to know (apparently the vet that assessed my horse loves surgery so they save it all up for her according to the senior vet) so think she lost interest when she couldn't operate.

They can inject straight into the sacrum which takes the swelling down and also shock wave treatment is an option but the key is physio. Getting them to work long and low and using their back end as building muscle is key.

My horse had 18months out of work and she has just started to come back onto work with help of physio. She is being long reined at the moment in a loose bungee, getting her into an active walk. Physio did suggest long reigning her in a Pessoa but my horse hates things round her bum so she would end up doin herself more damage. You don't want them tucked up in an outline, just something on loosely to encourage them to stretch down.

I'm at the start of our journey but from what I gather from talking to other people it's a long journey with horses with sacroiliac problems.

My horse is now also mentally scarred from her issues so I have to go extra slow so not to put any pressure on her otherwise she looses the plot.

Yas and crystal on here has a horse with the same issue and is further down the road than me so she may be a good person to contact