update on horse with suspected kissing spine

beetlejuice

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I posted on here a few weeks ago about my horse displaying some of the symptoms of kissing spine. i.e trouble cantering etc etc.

Went to the vets yesterday saw him ridden and lunged and confirmed it was indeed a back problem.

So they took 3 x rays of his spine went to look at them and came back to take some more- at this point it was starting to worry that i could indeed be kissing spine. however, they came back and said his spine was fine. big sigh of relief!

They then scanned along his spine and found that he had strained the ligament just where his saddle sits! It had never been able to heal properly as he was still being worked.They said if it was in another place he probably wouldnt have reacted to it at all.

So he needs lots of bute, lunging on the passoa twice a day and shockwave treatment. Very very pleased it is nothing sinister and is not career threatening at all.

I have already lunged him twice and have noticed a huge difference, just kicking myself now that i hadnt taken him to the vets sooner!!
 
Hello! First of all great to hear that your horse doesn't have kissing spine but just a problem you can work on! Can I be cheeky and ask what type of scan confirmed the strain of the ligaments? My horse has been problems with her horse over years and I did have her scanned earlier this summer (bone scan and x-rays) to see if there was an underlying problem but these scans didn't show up anything and I am back to square one. Horse has had time off and is now being worked again doing fine so far but I am just interested what other methods of diagnosis may be available that my vets had not explored. THanks!
 
Thats really good news bettlejuice that its not KS!

I know the feeling - same injury as i had posted about which my cob had. He is absolutely fab now with no lasting problems!

We went down the physio route (8 weeks off at a physio's yard where he had daily streching, ultrasound and physio with his work being built up on the horsewalker). We then started ridden work, 1 month walk, next month building trot up and then then third month building canter in on straight lines.

The vet said they would shockwave if he didnt improve but that wasnt needed.

Keep us updated on progress!

Cob 1 x
 
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