Yet another arthritic hocks thread (sorry)!

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FFAQ

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Hi everyone,

So much cob has finally been diagnosed with hock arthritis. He's 11 and obese. Blood tests showed 'normal' ACTH and insulin, but adiponectin was consistent with obesity.
So, the vet and I are nervous about steroid injections and potential for laminitis. He did mention hydrogel, which I presume is arthramid, but didn't really expand on the subject. We had another horse to discuss who was much more of an interesting case ? and I guess hock arthritis is pretty run of the mill for vets...
My problem is this. I suspect that the cobrador is a fatty partly because he is too sore to move like the others do. I genuinely have tried everything to slim him down. The slimmest he got was when he went in with a bully who constantly chased him, but he got beaten black and blue so I don't want to do that again when he's got sore hocks.
The vet said bute him, ride him and starve him ?.
Anyway, I am wondering about skipping steroids and going straight to arthramid but I don't really know anything about it. Here are my questions :
1/ cost - from a quick search on here, around £600 a hock?
2/ administration - can it be done at the yard or does it require horspitalisation?
3/ recovery period?
4/. How long does it typically last?
5/. Is it as closely linked to laminitis as the steroid injections?

Thank you if you got this far ?
 
Tiddlypom said:
Arthramid is a go :). My PPID mare with bilateral hock arthritis, £720 both hocks at horsepital as a day case.

Much longer lasting than steroids, and not the lami risk.

Can give more info later.
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Agree with this. Mine had it done at the clinic and I hung around while it was done. It's pretty quick to do so the main time is waiting for the sedative to wear off. No lami risk and they say it lasts up to a couple of years.

It takes time to reach effectiveness so you wouldn't see a difference straight away but maybe after about five or six weeks. Protocols seem to vary with some vets suggesting a gradual return to work and others saying just to get on with it.
 
My almost 13 year old Connie has Cartrophen every 12 weeks which works for now but I am considering having him injected with Arthramid having read up about it. Steroids are a no no as although he is very slim and trim he has had laminitis in the past and the vet wasn’t prepared to risk it.

I’m always interested to hear people experiences of Arthramid as it is expensive (insurance company won’t pay) but if it works worth every penny so FFAQ please keep us updated with how it goes.
 
Bit more from my first post. I've actually had two horses injected with Arthramid in both hocks, and one in both of her front coffins.

Very good results in all cases :).

Whilst it is not essential to take the horse to horsepital for joint jabs, my vet strongly prefers to do them in clinic, in a clean and disinfected treatment room. There is always a risk of introdcing infection into the joint, and she wants everything to be as clean and dust free as possible. She and the vet nurse also clean the area to be injected very, very thoroughly beforehand.
 
I think this is what I'm having for my mare (coffin joint). I went down the hock fusion route (chemical arthodesis) with mine. They used ethanol. Best thing I ever did but I think things have moved on in terms of new drugs and I think Arthramid is one of the better ones now.

But as I've always said (at risk of repeating myself) it's more about management with spavin (hock arthritis). You need to give them as much turn out as you can, warm up slowly and pick your surfaces, limit the trotting on the roads, look at remedial shoeing (quite often they will change the placement of their feed to avoid the pain in their hocks and even when treated and the pain has gone the muscles and tendons are still pulling those legs in all different ways so remedial shoeing in terms of lateral extensions prevent them placing the limb midline which is what my mare did).

You also might need to continue with bute and put them on a good joint supplement. Very important to keep their weight down too, I know only too well with my own arthritis how bad it can get the more my weight goes up. I've never been diagnosed but I'm sure its as a result of trauma from countless falls from my sharp horse out jumping and I can only imagine the discomfort of a horse in chronic pain with arthritis whose pain isn't managed carefully.

I always choose to medicate a joint away from home in a sterile area as Tiddlypom says. A joint infection is not a very nice thing to have. Plus it's cheaper if you can drop them off for the day, I normally leave my trailer parked up at the vets and go off to work. It saves me £44 on a call out in any case and ensures the horse continues to load well and the trailer goes out for a much needed tow.
 
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I'd go straight for the gel injections if I had my time again. Steroids didn't help for any length of time at all and mine struggles with her weight so its easy to get into that vicious circle of them being too sore to move, gaining weight, joints getting worse, even more sore etc etc.
 
Thanks everyone! You've pretty much confirmed my gut feeling. Sadly I don't have insurance so will be forking out myself ?, but I figure if the arthramid lasts much longer than steroids with no laminitis risk it'll either be comparable or cheaper in the long run. And hopefully, if he's more comfortable he will move better and I will feel happy to push him harder and we might get that elusive weight loss!
 
Huh, so much for that! I spoke to the vet this afternoon. Apparently, you have to do steroids first to see if it makes a difference. If it does, we can do arthramid 12 months after. And if the steroids wear off in the meantime, we bute until the 12 months is up. The cynical side of me thinks that they will get more money that way!!
I just want to do the best for my horse.
 
Yeah that sounds like a load of rubbish to me too. Some vets like to put some steroid in a couple of weeks before the gel so that the steroid can reduce the inflammation first and I have read that this gives better results. I know of lots of cases where this hasn't happened though, especially where steroids aren't indicated. I can't see any good reason for waiting 12 months before going for the gel.
 
Hm. I have never been a fan of this particular vet and have had a few issues with him. Oh well, best look for another vet I guess ?
 
That sounds unfair to me. My vet injected my horses coffin joints, the nearside in September and the offside in October. They wore off really quickly hence why I'm having the Arthramid.
I know the route to fusion started with steroid injections, then Tildren and then Ethanol, there was a certain order things had to be done in and you couldn't skip the first two!

If you have an account with the vet which presumably you do get their bank details and set them us as a payee and then just put whatever you can afford in every week. I do this and its surprising how much £10, £15, £30 and £40's soon add up every week. They used to get fed up of me ringing constantly to credit my account every Friday, this way it's done quickly and it has built up so quickly, I'm nearly there with my £300 estimate I was given for treatment.

That brings the total amount spent on my horse since 2004 on vets bills at around £28K - £30K although most were insurance jobbies.
 
Just to add another experience, my vet (who I absolutely trust) said that my cob's hock was too bad for arthramid - there is so much excess bone in there that there would be "no room" for the gel. So we did steroids, Tildren, and Cartrophen all over a period of about a month. However his hock is really quite horrible on x ray, yours probably isn't anything like as bad. But there was never any question of needing to do "steroids first" - we did everything at once.

HelenBack said:
Some vets like to put some steroid in a couple of weeks before the gel so that the steroid can reduce the inflammation first and I have read that this gives better results.
Click to expand...

This does make logical sense to me though, as a layman
 
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