Hi there. Vet tech here with personal experience with a kissing spine mare that we fixed surgically. Have a lot of experience with options & rehab… happy to share whatever I can with you. Feel free to PM me.
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THIS THIS THIS THIS
There are SO MANY things you can and should do before surgery, especially evaluate and treat foot pain and start a good therapeutic program with an experienced professional.
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Are you sure the 120 days doesn’t pertain to the treatment period for the condition after the policy end date? For example, I had a horse who was discovered to be neurologic, about 6 months into the policy. I had not only the entire remaining policy period, but then 120 days after the policy expired to continue to treat him and/or decide to euthanize.
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If this is the case I would do whatever it takes to wrangle the money together to get with a trainer who can encourage her to go long and low, to see if that helps or resolves this.
You do not have the handling skills to do this correctly, and its not something you can learn in time to try and and decide if it helped or not. I’m sorry to be blunt, but if the clock is ticking then it’s time to be real here.
Let me state again that the surgery is not where the pain gets relieved. The REHAB where the muscles to keep the processes spread are built is where it happens. If you can’t encourage her firmly but fairly to make the shape needed to build the right muscles, the pair of you are doomed.
This rehab needs to start right now. Not when Pookie feels like it. Not in 5 months when you figure out how to remotely get her head down and her back round. Not in 4 months when you finally get her into the arena and start lunging her.
The molly coddling stops today. Firm and fair. Obviously dont just slap equipment on tight as can be, but this process cant “take as long as it takes”. You need to say “Pookie, time to get your head down and quit screwing around with balking. Youre getting lunged in [loosely adjusted, progressively more influential] side reins, and in two weeks we will have them adjusted such that youre going long and low.”
It starts TODAY. If you can’t do it, find a good trainer who can.
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That’s all well and good but what about the significant foot pain?
Speaking as someone whose horse was diagnosed for soft tissue issues in the fronts and kissing spine at the same time— anything you do for one will aggravate the other. I ended up doing the ligament snipping surgery, therapies for the front feet, and then giving the horse a long period of time off before starting back in the Equicore. My horse is better than he ever was and totally sound but it was a very very LONG recovery. Conditioning was not really an option for my horse, that would have aggravated the soft tissue injuries in the feet.
Frankly OP needs to work with a vet who is knowledge about these issue and who she really trusts and stick with that plan. It’s easy to make suggestions across the internet but we don’t have the full clinical picture. Sometimes proper conditioning is sufficient but not always— and this horse is very footsore which is going to make conditioning at best a real challenge and at worse harmful.
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Both situations need to be dealt with. I personally would focus hard on the feet as, if they are not responsive, no amount of spine rehab matters. Bad feet will negate any spine work. The presence of bad feet are not going to allow you to evaluate how well the spine is doing
That she is barefoot, alone , might solve the issue, However, I would not proceed with the spine surgery without proper foot x-rays.
I dont think you have the whole picture and without a proper diagnosis of the feet, managing your horse overall becomes a further challenge
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Not to hijack, but my horse just got diagnosed with what the vet called “moderate to severe” kissing spines. We have a tentative plan in place for the next month but I am wondering if shoeing my gelding behind would be wise? He’s just been in fronts thus far.
OP I can relate to your worries! Hang in there, PM me if you could use support from someone also in the thick of things 
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Maybe. But OP is jumping to the thought of surgery, forgetting that rehab is the KEY to that particular surgery, and she can’t even consistently lead her horse around right now.
There’s a lot of problems with this situation.
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Agreed. Plenty of horses with likely far worse and more painful ailments can safely be led around their homes, in and out of arenas, barns, etc. She clearly has your number and no amount of veterinary treatment is going to fix or change that.
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I don’t think she is jumping to surgery. She’s just explaining that the clock is ticking on a plan because her insurance won’t cover the surgery outside a specific timeframe and she can’t pay for the surgery without the insurance.
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Could she be sore in her front feet because of her back?
Serious question.
Did your vets give you any additional insight into WHY her front feet are sore?
Two years ago, I discovered that one of my horses was born with crooked vertebrae in his neck, that was compressing his spinal cord. He was age 10 when we discovered this, and I’d had him since he was 6 months old (talk about devastating news). He would always flex “off” on his right front foot. And it stemmed from his neck. He also came up sore in his hocks and stifles. But again, secondary b/c of how he was trying to travel b/c of his neck. He was a VERY successful barrel horse, as well as qualified for the AQHA world show in Ranch Riding. I’m in awe of him because he lasted so long and he had this neck issue his whole life, before symptoms started showing.
Yup, my horse too. Never bucked. Never refused to go into the arena. Never let on the tremendous pain, that I can imagine he endured. They truly are the most selfless creatures on the planet. He always did the job I was asking him to do.
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I would be more inclined the other direction. The spine findings may be secondary
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Certainly could go either way!
If a horse doesn’t travel correctly because their front feet hurt, you don’t get the “long and low” that keeps the spine in good shape.
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Yes. And you can also experiment with hoof boots if you want more frequent trims to change angles. Indeed hoof boots are a great experiment because they also protect the sole. Try hoof boots and see if they change how she feels
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But circling around, with no diagnostics of the feet we cannot know what an optimal shoe is
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No, I’m not forgetting that rehab is the key to any surgery. Quite frankly, you’re making an assumption that I haven’t given any thought to rehab simply based on the fact that I mentioned surgery in the context of ‘if she needs it, it has to be this year’ while very, very upset and reeling with the shock of finding out that a horse I’ve had for under three months has kissing spine.
I’d love for it to be resolved without surgery. But if it needs to happen, it needs to happen this year because I cannot afford it otherwise. That’s what I’m saying.
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She and my trainer both think she may just need front shoes; I’m talking to the farrier when he comes this Thursday. She didn’t show any foot sensitivity when tested during her PPE and had standard front shoes on at that time as was typical for the horses at that sales barn, but because she wasn’t being ridden super often or on hard surfaces she had them pulled when she came here.
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I’m working with a professional trainer as much as I can afford. I can’t afford to send her to a training facility. I am out there with her literally every day, even during snowstorms, even when it rains, working with her on resolving the issue. I am reading books on training and watching videos on my lunch break. What else would you have me do?
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Mini-update: a pic of Ms. Beastie with her Tellington lead, which I actually found cheaper on a random Llama/Alpaca training tools site than on the actual Tellington site, and our actively disintegrating effort at assembling the “Fan” shape. She did it really well and was very quiet and mellow in the arena today, definitely more confident than she has been in a while. Stayed on the grass on the walk there as opposed to the pavement and she followed along nicely.
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Then if you’ve got some amount of time to decide what the plan forward is, you need to be taking lessons on how to be more assertive and how to encourage correct posture (long/low) both on the lunge and under saddle.
Can you share pictures of her feet?
