What are the Symptoms of navicular?

[Bluecat]

As title says. How would you know if your horse had it?

 

[Snowysadude]

Lameness. Sometimes on off I found, more lame on a hard surface on a circle than on a soft surface and no obvious signs as to why! Obviously X-rays would be the most conclusive thing but sometimes even they miss it . Im sure there are loads of other symptoms, the vet nerve blocked the foot and it went sound on a hard surface which is what indicated lameness was in the foot and not higher up the leg (could have been pedal bone or a number of other things though and this isnt my current horse!)

 

[snopuma]

My horse has navicular, first signs were a classic lameness, I fully expected a pussy foot, but he was walking toe heel not heel toe, so x-rays and scan and a nerve block to the navicular bursa proved the navicular, the pain is worse on hard ground, boots help alot, and he is on one bute every other day, he was diagnosed 4 years ago. Best thing I did was taking the shoes off 3 years ago after useless farrier with pads and natural balance shoes had no difference and weakened the hooves even more!

 

[Box_Of_Frogs]

If you have a stoic sort of a horse, you can miss it for ages as just an occasional shortened stride or stumbling, worse going downhill. My horse developed this. I didn't suspect a thing except that he always stumbled at a crooked bit of tarmac coming back to the yard and he'd got "lazy" going downhill. I hang my head in shame because many's the time I chivvied him up with my crop when he got left behind going downhill. Bless him, all he'd do was flatten his ears at me. He should have bucked me off. My RI friend advised getting the stumbling checked out and I was totally mortified when nerve blocking one foot produced such horrendous lameness in the other foot that he could hardly walk. Navicular syndrome, often with DJD thrown in, is often bi-lateral. So the horse's feet hurt just as much both sides so you don't see any lameness until you nerve block one side.

So if your horse is occasionally footy, occasional shortened strides, stumbling for no apparent reason and reluctant going downhill, then it's worth investigating further.

 

[imr]

Basically foot pain which equals lameness nearly always bilateral eventually even if starts on one side. Navicular is not one disease - its a series of different conditions that affect the same area of the foot and cause heel pain, so nowadays should be called palmar foot pain syndrome rather than navicular. You can get acute lamenesses as well as the lamenesses described above which are all fairly characteristic. There may be no radiologically detectable bone degrading in the navicular but you could have damage to the DDFT base and other associated soft tissues, which can only be seen on an MRI hence vets have only been really aware of the soft tissue problems as a cause of pain fairly recently. In other words if you cant see anything on xray nowadays it might be worth having a look at an MRI.

 

[tallyho!]

Navicular is a series of symptoms. The navicular bone is the bone that sits just underneath the coffin and sort of acts os a pulley "wheel" for the ddft.

When a horse is shod badly (almost exclusively a shoeing problem) the other structures in the foot get squashed, therefor forcing huge amounts of pressure on the navicular and the tendon and frog etc.

A good sign is as the others have said but physical signs are visible to the eye. The bulb of heel is more often than not squashed in and narrow or flat. The hoof at the heel is pinched and close together pushing the frog up into the processes above it. Low heels suggests that navicular process could be compromised.

My horse is recovering from it. You have to bite the bullet and take shoes off and be prepared to give time for recovery.

I also noticed the strange walk, "lazy" behaviour. poor mite.

 

[Laura1234]

Oh crikey, my boy was always useless at coming downhill, as though he did not quite know how to (or so we thought). He is on box rest at the mo recovering from a tendon injury, so this has now worried me loads, he is only 6! He is an ex-racer, and quite lazy with his feet, and has stumbled occasionally, but has long toes, which the farrier was trying to correct before the box rest, and again this was improving I thought. He has never had any lameness though? I maybe should mention this to the vet then when they are out next? His problem with hills was getting better I thought with work, it just seemed as though he was worried about how to tackle them and took tippy-toe steps, and I had to encourage him on to take bigger strides, and when he did, he relaxed a bit more (and so did I). What do you think?

 

[K27]

Shortened stride, pottery/shuffling gait, stumbling, long toe, low heels, tiny frogs, slow growing feet, reluctance to go forward-(Navicular:changes on Navicular Bone on Xrays... or maybe not, which i think they call Navicular syndrome.)

But the above doesn't necessarily mean Navicular, could just be a sensitive neddy like my boy whose Navicular bones are all normal!- could be Heel Pain/dodgy foot balance/ bad shoeing and not Navicular

 

[Laura1234]

Lets hope so, not sure I could take any more than I have had thrown at me in the past year! I suppose encouragingly he was improving on hills slowly, and felt this was his confidence getting better. It felt babyish, as though the weight of the rider really made him feel awkward in his balance, and his long toes were slowly being improved by my lovely farrier, so in fact this was also getting better (he never tripped for no reason, it was uneven tracks), so maybe I am now convincing myself he likely will not have it, which is better than convincing myself he does!! When he is (hopefully) back in work again, we will have to start at the very beginning again anyway work wise and build slowly up, as he had a very bad injury to his tendon, so I guess we will see how he goes, and it will be a long time yet until we tackle a hill anyway.

 

[jumpingjoy]

my horse went to the vets with lameness . he blocked in one foot and was fine in the other . they also took x rays and said their was slight dark patches showing around navicular bursa . they talked about doing mri but we choose not to go through with it he stayd on box rest for 3 months graduley going out for small walks leading upto turn out and now ride most days. he had his shoes removed and i ride him in boa boots which i personaly think help so much to cushion his feet. he comes in every night through winter and summer which i also think helps to take the preasure off and give them a rest. he did tend to stand with the affected foot pointing out to relive some of the preasure and also walks toe first . this was 3 years ago now and he is living a very happy life woulnd not put shoes back on again he is bare foot and always use boa boots riding out and only do very little trot work on roads . when i ride him in the school not very often as i think this would put too nuch strain on his foot i do around 20 mins .

 

[Louby]

My old horse was slightly lame on both fronts so didnt notice the lameness until other symptons started. She used to point her toe whilst standing in the field, motorbiked round corners when schooling or showing on grass, tripped a lot when hacking, pottery gait going down hill, long toes no heels when we bought her.
Nerve blocks and xrays diagnosed her as having Navicular.

 

[Laura1234]

When you say 'pointing toe', what do you mean?

 

[tallyho!]

On x-ray changes to diagnose navicular are not routinely used, this bone does not change shape but the soft tissue will which is where pain comes from.

 

[Louby]

When you say 'pointing toe', what do you mean?

She often stood in the field with one leg in front of the other, as if resting it but it looks like she was pointing her toe out in front of her, resting her toe on the ground but slight weight taken off her heel.

 

[charlie76]

Mine started with very subtle lameness, you could barely notice it. However it progressivly got worse. The first sign was his reluctance to go forward, he was also shuffley when he came out of the stable in the morning. He had one foot that started to contract as it got worse.

 

[tallyho!]

Charlie, that's exactly how I would describe my belongs foot...

 

[*Spider*]

My housemate/good friend's horse has Navicular. She was on/off lame on gravel, and x-rays/block came up with navicular. She trips a lot and when jumping she used to shoot off after a jump, which was possibly painful for her on landing.

 

[sparky1981]

at what age do they normally get it?My horse sometimes trips out hacking but is only just 8 and has never been lame and events