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Posted by Dr Thunes
on 9/17/2009, 1:44 pm, in reply to "I agree"
128.120.218.130
I missed the whole story on this only have seen this latest post but want to throw something out there. I agree re #4 or 5 but want to also suggest finding a vet with a force plate.
I went to a lameness talk at UCD 2 weeks ago. It was given by Dr Bo VRock of Borck veterinary clinic who was interviewing for a faculty position. He is a lameness specialist in Lamesa Texas and he spoke about using a force plate to help with diagnosis. It was an amazingly eye opening talk. Basically the force plate is a mat on the ground you walk the horse over and a computer image is created of how the horse is loading its feet. Based on where weight is being put you can see where pain may really be coming from.
He discussed a case of a horse who had been lame for years and seen by 5 different vets and the owner was where you are basically told him the horse was being put down if he couldn't get it happy. The horse has been injected previously in every conceivable joint and blocked everywhere but no diagnosis. He looked at conformation and found a few obvious things and then watched it move up a hill and it was more lame trotting up hill than down (kind of unusual) and then they ran the force plate, what this showed that they had not realized was that the horse was not putting any weight on one whole side of the lame foot. They blocked an area they thought might be effecting this and the horse was a little more sound up the hill and the foot started to load more. They took x-rays of every angle of the area and could find nothing but they narrowed it down to an area about 1 inch in diameter. Working with a specialist farrier they put special custom shoes on it and told her to have him shoe the horse every 4 weeks. The horse went sound and started winning reining competitions and then she decided to have her normal shoer do the horse and he put a wedge on it and it went lame. She took it back to the vet and at this point she decided to do an MRI and what they found was that there were adhesions between the tendon and the tendon sheath. He explained that this would be like having your elbow attached to your belly button, you could brush your teeth but brushing your hair would be painful. They did surgery to remove the adhesion's and the horse is currently sound. Surgery was in the month prior to the talk.
Now I'm not saying this is what your horse has but force plates are not commonly used and if you don't even know where the lameness is coming from it might at least help pin point it.
Lastly I will say that I have been involved with the decision to put down 2 horses due to lameness issues, both were young one 9 the other 12. The decision was very hard and emotional but has never regretted.
Turn off your thinking brain, look your horse in the eye, open your heart and you will know what you need to do.
Peace,
Clair
Independent Equine Nutritionist,
Equilibrate Equine Consulting,
www.equilibrateequine.com
clair@equilibrateequine.com
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