Veterinary gurus - any ideas?

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Halfstep

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Right, this is for a friend. I'd love to hear any ideas you might have.

10 yr old Irish mare. Working at AM dressage, schooling PSG (tempi changes, pirouettes etc.). Jumping 1.20 ish at home. Well schooled but very hot and needs careful riding.

In the last year or so she's slowly deteriorated in behaviour and ridden work, but nothing concrete has been found. She had sintigraphy and they found "hot spots" in her hocks and sacro-iliac joints, which were treated with the usual steroid/ha injections but that had minimal effect. The vets admitted that most horses her age would have these hot spots.

She had a strange intermittent colic last year, which was thought to be associated with her ovaries and she was put on regumate, which seemed to help a bit (but she did have a minor colicy episode while on it). Has had back x-rayed - no kissing spines.

Now she is bunny hopping in her canter transitions. She is planting and refusing to move in walk. She will not collect the canter at all (remember this horse was schooling pirouettes). Her trot has gone very choppy. There is no technical lameness and she is sound on flexion. The only other thing is that the muscles over her hind quarters feel very tense and hard, and she's extremely sensitive to anyone touching her there. Her saddle tends to slip to the right whenever she's ridden (and it does fit her according to saddler).

Oh, and last year she did a check ligament and was out for five months, but that's been scanned as healed.

Now, I'm thinking two things. Firstly get her hind suspensories scanned. And secondly get her checked out for EPSM/azorturia type problems. What do you think?
 
The 2 things you ave mentioned were the 2 things that sprang to mind when reading symptoms.

My boy with PSD would do that bunny hop behind in canter, loose push in mediums, and very resistant in the collections and would buck and change in counter canters
 
The first thing I would do is get her ovaries scanned by a GOOD equine repro vet. Regumate is ONLY a help if a mare's misbehaviour is associated with fluctuating hormone levels when she comes into/goes out of season. There are a number of other reproductive problems that cause bad behaviour - an enlarged ovary (due to haematoma or tumour),or persistent annovulatory follicles being just two. A more 'extreme' problem is a granulosa theca cell tumour - this will usually cause discomfort in the early stages, as it grows it would usually be associated with more extreme behavioural issues, both ridden and on the ground.
 
Janet, that is interesting. She's had her ovaries scanned by our vet, but he is a orthopedic specialist, not a repro vet. He said her ovaries were normal.

I'll pass on your information - will do some reading on granulosa theca cell tumour, that sounds very interesting.

Many thanks!

BandJ - i was thinking that hind suspensories really do need to be ruled out as a first port of call.
 
maybe, if not done already, get someone to check her musculoskeletal system over ie osteo (obv 1st choice!!) or chiro/physio or other reputable body worker, they may well find something that the vets wouldn't normally consider a problem. part iof the reason is also because of the colic etc, i won;t get too heavy with the anatomy etc but there are many nerve links between the musculoskeletal system and the organs so there could well be a problem with either that could be treated by m-s therapy. it would be relatively cheap and much less invasive than the other options and may help her .
 
id want a good master saddle fitter to have a look over the saddle fit again i think, and bear in mind some are better than others! our current one has reformed some of our horses. if its slipping to the right then either she is assymetric OR she has problems affecting her musculoskeletal system, such as one hind driving with more strength than the other. we use pads to even up and stop saddles slipping and it is surprising how often other problems seem to 'fix' themselves then! for eg one of our very good sj's always changed late behind by a stride and nothing could persuade her to correct. however, since balancing the saddle with new fitter - changes are fine! said mare also used to look off behind a lot, swish tail, and if she stopped it was always a run out to the left. or half halts ended up as full stops. not any more!
 
My thinking at the moment is that the muscle problems etc. (and yes she's seen my a good physio regularly) and the saddle issue are secondary to something else going on. The saddler (who is very good and does my saddles as well) said that her saddle was ok and that the slipping was almost certainly being caused by something physical.

I'm going to speak to the owner later and recommend that she have hind suspensories scanned, hocks x-rayed, and think about getting her seen by a specialist repro vet. Poor girl, until all this she hadn't been sick or sorry one day in her life.
 
i think that getting the vet to investigate hocks etc is very wise, at least you;ll know what you;re dealing with then and can go on to sort things properly. good luck.
 
I went through something similiar to what you are describing with my Ad. med. mare last year. The main differences being she was mildly lame and there was no saddle slipping. She presented with the intermittant colic, ?ovulatory pain, then became slightly lame a few weeks later. A full lameness work eventually showed desmitis of a sesamoidean ligament. This is not that straight forward to diagnose and even less so to treat but you may want to bear it in mind if nothing shows in the suspensories. I would strongly urge you not to work her until this has been out ruled to have a chance at a favourable outcome.
 
Bit of a random stab in the dark, but ulcers? Would you be able to have her scoped for them or trial her on gastroguard and change her routine for a couple of weeks to one suitable for an ulcer sufferer to see if that helps?
They'd fit with the muscle problems being a symptom of her holding herself tense in slightly strange positions to try to get her gut feeling more comfy?
 
My four year old IDxTB mare's hindlimb suspensory ligaments are badly chronically damanged. She presented sometimes sound, sometimes lame, but always losing muscle over the top of her off-hind quarter. She would lean on the bit (even a Waterford!) and not be happy in canter. When bad, tail would swish and we'd get the occasional buck from this very mild mannered horse. Parts of her bakc are sensitive to touch. McTimony back lady (Emma Punt) put her back a few times, but was keen that we get the vet out as she (Emma) didn't think it should keep going. Tiggy had a saddle that two Master Saddlers said fitted, but she would turn her bum on me when she saw it coming. I had Jo Bevis from the Naitonal Saddle Centre out and she fitted an Albion - no more problems from the saddle point of view.

It turns out that things are not good for us. If I ever come across another situation where no body is really sure what is going on, I will ask for a referral straight to somewhere like the AHT. In our case, the wonky pelvis is a result of the problem, and dramatic as it looks, it is not a problem in it's own right.

Getting tired. Hope I've said what I meant to!
 
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