Thermal imaging

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BethH

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Hi I am still struggling to get to the bottom off waves of not-quite-rightness with my horse. At the moment, he isn't lame, feels a little unlevel and on and off as thought his left side is a bit lower than the right. I feel that he has been not quite right on and off on his left hind for 12-18mths since I changed farrier and so 9mths ago took him barefoot as he was starting to under run and land toe first, feet were very unbalanced, crushed heels etc etc, but feet are looking really good now. A friend watched him in the school at the weekend as I was a bit unhappy with him and said his left buttock looked locked and he wasn't bending round the corners sort of going square and that his tail was off to the left.

We have had a lot of chapters of not quite rightness, the latest resulting in him recently seizing up on the right side. The vet found it hard to detect lameness but agreed he was stuffy going forward, a 2 wk bute trial made no difference, a physio saw him and said his whole right side had seized as thought he had fallen over and and did a marvellous job sorting him and I think the cause is that when we took the shoes off, we found the left hand side feet were worse than the right and I think he has been massively compensating for that over 12-18mths and his body finally had had enough. So he is now moving well again but I have a feeling the pelvis is a little out of kilter, messages have been left for the chiro but as I am finding it hard to get a permanent resolution as he seems fine and then is suddenly not. I am very close to sending him to the vets for scanning but worried about doing so given his history, as he had KS as a baby and was operated on very successfully but is very over sensitive and putting him through the whole process again makes me feel a bit sick. A friend has suggested thermal imaging as apparently it can be done at a reasonable cost, at the yard.

Does anyone know if it is any good, how successful their feedback is in pinpointing the problem, and would it work with such a solid area as the pelvic/ sacroiliac area which I have a gut feeling is where the problem is?? And info, advice, experiences greatly received and a recommendation of who, where what, how etc etc would be gratefully received..... Thank you for getting this far!
 
I'm not Kent, but certainly one of the things TI is good for is looking for the seat of intermittent or hard-to-diagnose lamenesses. It isn;t w order cure, but for finding out *where* the niggles etc are coming from, it is good. Also for injury monitoring, especially tendons/legs/back/large superficial muscle groups. RE pelvis/SI, I certainly know of people who have had problems in this area picked up, however it depends how deep seated the problem is - if there is no change to the superficial temperature then it won't be noticed. Normally back/pelvis/SI inflammation can be noted, though.

It is certainly done at the yard, which is really nice, and even my mate's box-rested mare who hates vets wasn't too fussed. I would say it is reasonable in cost compared to other diagnostic tools i.e. x-rays, ultrasound, bone-scans, scintigraphy, however isn't exactly cheap - my thermographer charges £230 for a full body scan, or (what I normally go for) £30 for back and £65 for a pair of legs. She does quite good day rates though for multiple horses which we take advantage of as works out cheaper.
 
Hi thank you all for replies will go investigate. Managed to get my fab chiro to go over him with a fine toothcomb on Thurs, she finally found what she thinks is a small bony change, she thinks it is slightly restricting his pelvic tilt which explains the on/off problems with the left leg getting tired as it is blocked from coming under properly and also causing a huge loss of back end power which has also been worrying me. She said the area is very dense so hard to scan but I will call of couple of your recommendations to see if they think the thermal scan can give an indication before I pay the vet a shed load of money. Fingers crossed we can sort it for him, he is such a lovely person, I am gutted for him!
 
Its surface temperature more than anything -it picked up issues over my boys hip and hindquarters muscle and also picked up thrush in a foot so is very sensitive -hope you get it sorted soon :)
 
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