Tildren for Kissing spines

[Bert&Maud]

My 14 year old gelding has recently been diagnosed with Kissing Spines. My vet has recommended treatment with Tildren (Tiludronate) which I know has been used for Navicular and Spavin, but I can find no reports of its use for kissing spines. Does anyone have any experience of this? Would also like to hear from people who have used it for other condition with regard to side effects, length of treatment etc.

 

[Caritas]

My horse was diagnosed with kissing spine nearly a year ago. I had nothing mentioned of any other treatment but an op from my vet. All went extremley well adn my horse is back working ever better than before. Good luck !!

 

[Bert&Maud]

Thanks for that. By sheer unfortunate coincidence my last horse also had kissing spines (is it me?!) and he had surgery about 15 years ago. He only had to have one DSP removed, whereas my current horse has 4 sites, 3 consecutive and 1 separate, so that would involve a lot of surgery. I understand that drug treatments are being used more often now rather than surgery.

 

[seabiscuit]

Another member of the kissing spine fan club! LOL..

The drug treatment for kissing spine merely involves cortisone which is not a route I'd advocate for a kissing spine as cortisone permantly damages ligaments as well as offering pain relief and the more it is used the more the ligaments are destroyed.

Tildren is highly controversial as well.

Perhaps your vet does not want surgery for your horse because of his age. But the KS surgery is seriously such a routine operation nowdays(things have moved on in 15 years!) and quite honestly it is almost as simple as taking teeth out (it sounds awful to put it like that!) but it is the most routine operation- all your taking out is bits of excess bone.There is no big deal to KS operations anymore.

If your horse needs 4 DSP removed that is absolutely nothing- my horse needed 3 DSP taken out. I *think* that they can only do 3 DSP at a time, but even so, just 3 DSP out is a lot better than none at all if you dont want to have a second operation.

IMO the only way to fix a Kissing Spine is to operate- I researched long and hard before my horse had his op ( I thought OMG it is too much of a big deal!) but surgery is the only thing that can fix the problem...nothing is going to stop those bones rubbing unless you take them out...

Let us know how it goes

 

[BethH]

I agree with all of the above, my horse had 3 bits of bone out in April and has come back in to work. We tried injections and it didn't work for him although it can do on many others. My feeling is if the bone is rubbing the op solves the problem but my vet who is superb, is against surgery unless absolute necessary, however in Ryans case he felt it was a good option, but then again I did have massive behavioural problems from the pain he was in, he was a good candidate as he had nothing else wrong and was 7 years old.

I was terrified of putting him through the op, like all other horse owners, he is very much loved and part of our family, but the surgeon both caritas and I used to operate is superb (he is local to you as well - 4 hours in the horsebox for my boy to go to Willesley Equine Clinic - Svend Kold) and I don't think my horse could possibly have been in better hands. If you go down the op route it is hard work and a little disheartening at times, but if you go into it with the right attitude and are prepared to deal with the rehab programme it could be a solution for you. If you want to pm me please do, but make sure you find out the pros and cons of all of the options before you decide to go ahead and do anything.

By the way my boy is still sound being ridden (low level at the moment as we build him up) 5 times a week, all behaviour problems have gone and he doesn't even have a scar, you can't tell he had the op! We have the occasional blip but I am so grateful the op worked (bear in mind this is not a 100% certainty!) even if he couldn't be ridden it is lovely to be able to see he is relaxed and happy and no longer in pain.

 

[JaneyB]

nope, they can have more than 3 out, mine had 5!

 

[seabiscuit]

Blimey- I had forgotten that you had 5 out Janey!! How is he now?

 

[rrose]

my mums horse had kissing spines but that was when the operation was not done much, and might not of worked. the sucess stories i have heard is nice to here just a shame they could not do that for my mums horse.