Unidentified Lameness

Welshmagic

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9 August 2010
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Last year my horse went lame in the middle of competition season. He was mainly lame in walk on his near hind. At the time I got the vet and physio out and they thought he might have slipped over the in the stable. They said to walk him out in hand 3 x a day and 1 x bute a day, which I did and lameness went away. This was the 2nd time he had had this lameness.

This week it has come back again. I had physio out today and she said to call vet, which I did. He was again lame in walk on near hind, but mostly sound in trot (does show few lame steps if on figure of 8 when changing from left to right). He did flexion tests which made no difference.

In walk, he does a long stride followed by a short stride and to watch it is v. odd as he appears at times to be tracking up with offhind but not with nearhind. There is a real visible difference.

Vet and I are concerned that he seems to be getting this problem when in heavy school work when competing. After last time brought him back into work v. slowly adding in extra work v. carefully. He's been in consistent work for last 6 months but over last few have gradually been asking for more again with view to progressing our dressage up a level.

Have to give him "bute test" over the bank hol weekend to establish whether this is painful for him or whether it is just mechanical. Will be interesting to see. After that Vet will need to have him in for nerve blocks to try and ascertain what's going on!

Was wondering whether anyone else had come across anything similar?
 
I'd be inclined to try having a 'Thermographic' image taken. It works by showing the various temperatures of the horses body. It is brillient at pinpointing the seat of inflamation where the tissue temperature is higher than normal. The pics below are of one of our school horses, aged 19, you can see the areas of white which are indicative of inflamation.
ThermographicImages-1.jpg
 
Stride pattern, level of lameness, and timing of the lameness are a shoe-in for sacroiiliac joint instability. Be very careful! If it's that and it's mild you can cure it, if you work him too hard and he really does it he'll have the odd footfall for life.
 
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