Em, coming over after your post on the eventing board. Did you also pull a tick panel? Have you considered a full-body scan? He looks off in his back end to me. Could be the stifle or could be something else. Just seems (with the vocalizations) like he is a good boy trying to tell you that something hurts.
Oh, and I must be dense, what is the L word?
If we pull a Lyme titre (I assume this is what you mean by a tick panel) we will only do so via a spinal tap. So not there yet.
L word is Laminitis
Full body scan = roughly $2300+ Lunar is uninsured and if you read all 7 pages you’ll see that for his $750 purchase price he’s incurred over $6k in vet and medication bills…so far.
Em
I understand perfectly. I have one also. I don’t know what is wrong with mine either. Just had the vet out again for a conference on him. Another exam and more radiographs. All we found was some mild coffin joint arthritis. Changed his trimming and added some shoes. He looks perfectly sound on the lunge. Luckily my husband is willing to take him on as his trail horse. Horse seems happy trail riding at the walk.
Curious why a spinal. I know that my vets (horse and dog) have tested for Lyme antibodies in the blood.
That should clear up any commitment questions…
I often can’t see vague lameness either. Start questioning what you see or wondering where it is, drive you nuts. Had a great diagnostic vet, since retired, who would always start a PPE or NQR exam by spending up to 30 minutes watching the horse go both ways W-T-C under saddle or about 15 on the lunge. Also stood right behind them trotting away and towards him. I often would watch, even stand next to him, couldn’t see a thing, he, on the other hand, did, Finally gave up and asked what it was he could see I couldn’t. He said quit looking for head bobs and don’t look at the feet.
Look higher, Look for the horse taking a different size step with one leg then it’s partner on the other side. Watch the topline, is the up down movement at the trot equal or higher for one diagonal pair stride, lower on the other.
As the horse is lead away from you on that straight line, imagine a 2x4 resting across the top of the hips, does it stay level? If not is it always falling off on the same side? That one is my favorite. Once you see that in the in hand video, you can go back and pick it out in all of them. More subtle at first…but there.
When the horse is coming towards you, is the shoulder movement symmetrical, little harder to tell then with the imaginary 2x4. Something else that’s good for shoulders is watching them from the side at the walk, horse should reach out equally on both sides look how he reaches, not at what happens when the foot hits the ground… Also at the walk from the side, look at how well it tracks up, whether the horse gets the hind hoof up to or into the print left the the front foot, Some are just short strided, might be normal for them. But if you got one that used to get the hind hoof up to, into or even ahead of that front print and now is 6" short? Or get it on one side but not the other? That points to a problem.
So my conclusion was arrived at by looking at all those videos, most at least twice, for a total of about 30 minutes, first observing the big change in tracking up from earlier vids to later ones. Then the connection between objecting to rider direction on the right lead under saddle and the hesitancy to use the right lead much at liberty, stopping and rearing and kicking out on the right lead and the hind swaps off the right lead. Then there was the going through instead of over that jump, off the right lead, That all pointed right at not wanting to load the left hind.
Thats why I wanted to see that in hand video going away and that 2x4 was sliding off left every stride.
I never saw any head bob or lame step. And I have absolutely, positively no idea as to the cause…just where to start looking.
Suspect others who voted left hind arrived at that conclusion via similar observations, it’s good to learn to develop an eye for this stuff and be willing to spend the time really watching and comparing. Good That Em gave us so much footage over a long enough period of time too.
BTW, you can often feel these things from the saddle long before anything is obvious. Tough on a strange horse but on one you know? You know somethings going on.
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Here in the Mid Atlantic region the theory is that given the proliferance of ticks that most if not all horses will test positive on some level due to lifelong exposure. Spinal fluid shows more of the actual Lyme issue versus simple tick exposure.
But overall they did a study here and it found that most of the Lyme testing methods are variable in their results:
I highly recommend that you also watch this video with one of my doctors, Dr. Amy Johnson:
http://www.thehorse.com/videos/37636/i-think-my-horse-has-lyme-disease-now-what
Em
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Thanks! Will do. Did my MPH at Yale in the heart of Lyme country, so, even though I now work in a different area, infectious diseases are still an interest of mine.
I’m jumping in with those who have said SI… which may cause some imbalance issues in the hips which clearly can filter down to unilateral lameness. There’s just something about his balkiness that reminds me of my last horse who was a different horse when his SI was sore. Some bodywork (which we all know is way cheaper than injections…), a week course of robaxin and I think 10 days of lunging in huge circle long and low brought him right back. I also have the BOT long back pad - the one meant to be sewn into a blanket - and that certainly didn’t hurt things. The lunging was almost long lining with one line - I’d stand in the middle of the ring but follow him down the long side at least half way to make it as easy of an exercise as possible.
Just as a recap to those who are coming late to the party:
At New Bolton yesterday we found pinpoint ulcers and he’s now been started on GastroGard and is off of work for the next few weeks.
We also jogged him for the clinicians and he was definitely lame on the LH. This will be evaluated once we come back (in a few weeks)
He is not on any inflammatory drugs and won’t be until after the next round of workups.
Em
I’m still doing the Cornell blood test for lyme, is NBC not thinking that’s reliable anymore?
The press release seems to indicate that it’s hard to test for the near form of Lyme (never even heard of this before now), and the video is pretty commonsense in that Dr. Johnson encourages people not to be keyboard vets. Thank you
@Xctrygirl Thank you for the info!!
I have always handled Lyme as follows: draw blood spring and fall, send to Cornell. Expect a low positive number (usually 1200-2500) for just about every horse in the area, if we don’t know the history (and I don’t know any horse who doesn’t have antibodies to Lyme in this area). If that number suddenly spikes to 10,000, 20,000, or even 40,000, plus has accompanying symptoms, such as crankiness, varying lameness, dull personality, then we treat accordingly. My horse, for example, will suddenly start rearing when he has Lyme. My prior horse suddenly wouldn’t let you touch him, any skin contact would at a minimum result in a nasty face with ears pinned, possibly a kick out (not at you). That sure made it tough to ride! But very clearly they told me when something was wrong.
Sorry to derail the train some more…
Totally agree with watching/asking a good lameness vet a bunch of questions when you can. We took my old horse up to a really good one at a University vet school here. He was off on his right hind - refusing tight spots to jumps & felt like he had a “flat tire” on the right lead canter. I could make him look sound if I posted on the wrong diagonal going to the right (So I wasn’t weighting the right hind when it was on the ground). Everybody told me he looked OK, but it felt horrible to me when riding him.
Vet was great (we called him Superman because he looked like Clark Kent with his glasses). Video taped him trotting on a hard surface with a 8 foot pvc privacy fence behind him. Then he showed the video to the students on a big screen & I got to sit in. He pointed out exactly what he was looking at. Said to watch the top of his withers move along the fence, notice how the don’t go as high when one set of legs is on the ground (don’t remember which -it was 10 years ago). Also said to look at the size of the trot steps in comparison to each other. He said he often used videos to evaluate, especially if they are lame in more than one limb. We ended up ultra-sounding the right hind & the comment about his high hind suspensory was “Grande” - it was double the size it should have been… Ended up retiring horse to pretty much just hacking around at walk/trot.
I have trouble seeing front end lameness for some reason. I think @findeight suggestion of watching shoulders will help me with that.
Just wanted to chime in that this has been a VERY education thread for me. Thanks OP for sharing so much with us!
I can’t watch the video at work so I have to wait until tonight for that.
I have a horse with a mystery illness/infection right now, possibly tick bourne, and we sent blood to Cornell. Now I am wondering if that was right. Long story with him, I won’t muck up this thread with it.
I will say that when I asked my vets/co-workers here if we should pull the lyme blood test yesterday it was a hearty ‘no.’ Now don’t make the mistake of applying this to all cases. This was a specific question and answer only for my horse on the day.
I will say that Gin was here not long ago and we did his testing through spinal tap alone. Everything was negative and the effect, on me as an owner, was that negatives with spinal was more influential than negatives on blood. But that could have just been in my head due to the much higher costs. (See earlier reference of how we assign effectiveness often to the cost of things)
I will say I think all Lyme testing is difficult from what I have known in this (Lyme prevalent) area. Horses can have the disease and be negative or positive on all possible tests.
Another fun article… and I adore the common sense behind him, but Dr. Ramey makes a lot of good sense. Admittedly what information he used for this article was from a lecture with Dr. Johnson of New Bolton/UPenn and Dr. Joe Bertone of Western University in California. (Side note, they both went to Cornell Vet School)
https://www.doctorramey.com/the-frustratiof-lyme-disease/
Em
I would test for Lyme and EPM.
Did you read any of the 7 pages???
Em
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Oh and lunge him.
I kid, I kid.
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So I kind of wonder, in a psychological type of way, if I hadn’t said the horse was miserable and if I didn’t work where I do if the responders would have landed on the same analysis and the same suggestions? What if I was Jane Doe from Kansas and I’d said I was so happy with my horse? I don’t question any of your thoughts…well most of them anyway, but I was reading an old article that talked about how marketing suggestions (in advertising of chain restaurants and some foods) really could influence what people thought of a thing. They tested folks who watched a bunch of mainstream commercials and had them try food at I think it was an Applebee’s and then they took them to a sterile environment and gave them the same meal but on slightly smaller and not decorated plates. What happened? The non decorated meals were panned and the meals that looked like the advertising was celebrated. Same chefs, same kitchen, same meals. Different impressions.
Em
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Can only speak for myself - I read your first post pretty thoroughly but everything else I skimmed through. No, I was not influenced by your use of the word ‘miserable’ or the fact that you work at New Bolton - except to think lucky you to have access to all of that knowledge!
One video of him in side reins the first thing that popped into my head was that he was not using his back. At all. I had a gelding who was like this also - however much younger and I bought him unstarted. As it turned out, he had hock arthritis, bad stifles, and who knows what else. I tried everything available to me but nothing worked and finally I gave him away as a weekend trail horse - which suited him fine.
Fast forward some 8+ years and my knowledge base now says check for Kissing Spines, SI, Stifle, Hock, and beyond that, given all you have done for him, I personally would not feel bad to put him down.
I am sorry you are going through all of this. :sadsmile:
