Unusual joint problem in a three year old

[Monkers]

I have a three year old warmblood with a very strange problem. He is prone to enormous windgalls in all four fetlocks but particularly the hinds. He gets bursal swellings in his hocks and on the back of all four pasterns. His hind fetlocks are still weak and a bit slack. This is more obvious when he's trotting as the backs of the fetlocks hit the ground. It comes and goes a bit and the general pattern is an improving one, we haven't had a really dreadful joint swelling since before Christmas, but he's far from normal.
Has anyone experienced anything like this before? I don't think its OCD, it's more of a ligament issue. The vet thinks it's a developmental thing and he will either strengthen up or he won't. He's perfectly sound and always has been.
He had a three month course of prednisolone as a yearling as he had raised liver enzymes. I can't help thinking that the steroids have harmed his joints, although the vet thinks not.

Anyone else had this?

 

[Casey76]

has he beed tested for DSLD?

 

[Monkers]

He hasn't had a test for this so I will certainly mention it to my vet. He has no pain on palpitation and he isn't lame, so I very much hope it's not DSLD.

 

[Lgd]

Might be worth getting the vet to scan the branches of his hind suspensories if he hasn't already. The drop can indicate suspensory issues - my mare wasn't even lame and had desmitis of all four branches, although it is looking like the cause is hormonal with her.

 

[Monkers]

My vet doesn't really want to scan or X-ray. He says it's better to wait and see what happens. I suppose he's thinking we might see the odd bone chip and that may or may not be the cause and we go off on an expensive journey "fixing" things. If it was just one joint affected, the we would have x rayed, but it's all the fetlocks, hocks, stifles. Knees are ok! The annular ligament sometimes becomes so swollen, you can get hold of it. The windgalls have swollen half way up the cannon bone. Then the next day, they have gone again. It really is very strange and as I say, there has never been any pain or lameness. At the moment, it's almost unnoticeable. Joints are a little puffy and the hind fetlocks slightly lowered. The swellings on the backs of the pasterns are almost always present though. This is a really classy, well bred horse. Such a shame if he doesn't come right. He was fine until he was a yearling, which was about the time he went on the steroids.....

 

[CBFan]

Interestingly my now 8 year old has suffered with odd swollen joints since he was a youngster - Started with one hock and we xrayed through fear of OCD due to family history, all clear but he has had this intermittently throughout his life. last year he had surgery on his proximal sesamoid ligament down by his fetlock die to a tiny bone chip causing swelling and lameness and then november time his hock on his other leg blew up - two weeks of bute and it went down and hasn't reappeared - yet. I do think sometimes it is a developmental issue and does improve but he may be one to always have funny joints. My friend had a horse with fetlocks that touched the ground when he moved but he was a very sound and useful horse well into his 20's when he sadly broke his leg in the field...