Horses usually adjust to stall rest when given low calorie hay and no grain. Grained up, they’re unlikely to. If they are still restless, pharmaceutica is better than a chronically lame horse.
I’m probably a glutton for punishment to keep responding, but…
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Horses usually adjust to stall rest when given low calorie hay and no grain. Grained up, they’re unlikely to. If they are still restless, pharmaceutica is better than a chronically lame horse.[/QUOTE]
Yes, I agree, that’s why when we were doing stall rest his already low NSC complete feed (he’s not on a “grain” per se) was cut way back and he got all the grass hay and water and min/salt he could desire free choice. He got terribly thin. We tried this for over awhile, btw. He also still got super upset/violent when he saw everyone except whoever stays in with him leave the barn and go outside. I actually called the vet at one point to come out an tranq him (the day he kicked through the wall/and his buckets), but he calmed down prior to the vet getting there.
However, the big damage I referred to previously was not done with onlookers (I didn’t sit there and watch him kick down his stall) he did it awhile after everyone left. We also tried different stalls to see if a view made him happier, etc.
Dressage Art: Yes, I was terrified he was going to hurt himself and that’s why I asked if we could go back outside. I was also likely to get kicked out of the barn (I did my best to replace what he destroyed) and they are the only boarding facility that 1)feeds twice a day 2)has mares sep. from geldings, which he needs 3)will catch him if he won’t come in for meals (problem at last barn) 4) will let me keep a cribber–there are barns that won’t allow him because of that.
Yes he has issues. He is an OTTB that cribs, is hard to keep weight on, has eyesight issues in low light situations, has some arthritis in his hocks and possibly navicular, is NOT a beginner horse and probably never will be (very sensitive–part of why he is awesome to ride), thinks he’s a stallion if a mare is around, won’t lay down and sleep in a stall (which leads to him crashing/faceplant & yes I’ve had several full lameness workups), etc. It is what it is and I’m working with my vet/farrier to do my best for him.
As far as chronically lame, you would never know he had a problem until you made him work on a circle. Now that he’s barefoot I think his issues are sole related and he is just short strided, etc. but not headbobbing or anything. He still moves out freely on the grass. So on sore days he gets ulcergard and bute. I really did not want to pull his shoes.
I very much enjoyed hearing how everyone was managing their horses, thanks.
Do a full diagnostic workup. Until you’ve actually seen TRUE navicular on a film, you’ve got heel pain. We used to call all heel pain navicular disease but there are tons of things that can cause it.
To say all heel pain is navicular disease is just like saying all colic is due to impaction. We all know there are tons of things that can cause colic symptoms. There are also tons of things that can cause navicular like symptoms.
Figure out exactly what you are dealing with and then decide how to treat. If he’s got a truly degenerative condition, manage pain and slow the progression as much as possible. People can write books about how to treat it but what works on a navicular cyst might not work on a calcified coffin bone, bone spur or true navicular degeneration. Some people say that you treat it all the same no matter what you’re dealing with… It’s just not true.
We all love to arm-chair quarterback here but none of us have seen your horse’s x rays or discussed what is really going on. Get yourself to a top quality vet who specializes in soundness and discuss your options. Navicular x-rays and diagnostic nerve blocks can tell you a lot about what the problem is. You will need to have his shoes pulled for these x-rays. I’d try that before resorting to an MRI.
Also, IMHO, I’d rather have the horse happy in a paddock than jumping around in a stall. I would NOT give him any bute or other pain killers though if you want him to rest. A little pain might be a good thing right now.
Did you know that people can have navicular pain too? My mother had so much arthritis growing around her navicular bone that her foot started slowly moving sideways to the outside of her leg. They had to go in, clean it up and permanently fuse her ankle ion the standing position. She had such crippling pain prior to this that she could barely walk. Nasty-assed little bone.
I very much agree with the people who suggest a more extensive workup so you know exactly what you are dealing with. Navicular is a simplistic catchphrase for many many varied conditions, as DA and others have outlined.
Increased vascular channel size on x-ray does not definitively = navicular. It is the change in time over the size of these channels that indicates a degenerative problem. Many horses and certain breeds show larger channels that may not change over the course of years.
It is really hard to decide what to do with your horse and you really can’t know what to do until you look back on what you have done!!:lol: I rode a horse that was diagnosed with navicular on PPE and she was short strided in front. But she was also a short-strided horse. The buyer got the horse for half price…was the student of a BNT eventer…horse didn’t take a lame step with regular shoes for the time that her old owner kept in touch with the new owner. I rode another horse diagnosed with navicular who was put in bar shoes. Bar shoes made her seriously uncomfortable and they had to be pulled. Regular shoes and later pads and 2 degree wedges worked fine but low and behold, her xrays never changed over years…farrier believed the problem was heel pain exacerbated by the previous farrier getting the angle all wrong, not navicular. Suggested removing the wedges. This horse’s barnmate was also diagnosed and showed through I1 with bar shoes and no injections. You just never know…
PS. I agree that stalling does not seem to be the best option for your guy. Perhaps a very small or divided paddock or something will make him feel “turned out” without giving him alot of space. A freind had shoulder surgery done on her horse and they made a very little pipe paddock made out of those pipe panels for him and moved it around for fresh grass once every few days or so. He was happy in this for about 7 months!! He, too, was not going to be confined inside but was happy in the same stall- sized pipe paddock outside for 7 months. Go figure!
Hello! I just bought a 17 hand Appaloosa gelding, he had a navicular fracture in his front left hoof. He had fractured when he was four years old while he was jumping, he had five years of rest and limited riding but now he is fully rideable and will actually be going into western pleasure. Hope I helped!
Well, since the posts were from 9 years ago, I suspect information now is not too useful! :winkgrin:
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He wasn’t put to hard/competitive work, but a fellow boarder has a QH that was diagnosed navicular at age 11. He was “only” a trail horse, but once they had a definitive diagnosis they did what they could for him - bar shoes, pads, isoxuprine, occasional bute - and he continued to be a trail horse, actively ridden at least five days a week, over hilly and sometimes rocky trails.
He was shared by a husband and wife, and when the wife retired from riding due to her physical problems, the husband - a rank beginner - continued to trail ride him for many, many years. Their daughter occasionally rode him, and while he was not shown, when she rode it was dressage and a good 45 minute work. He was also used on competitive (obstacle, not distance) trail rides. While he had occasional bad days, he stayed basically sound for many years, and they have only recently retired him - at age 28!!! - because of arthritic knees, not the navicular. They maintain the shoeing/pads/isoxuprine schedule, and had to add anti-Cushings meds - but he’d never shown any signs of beginning to founder prior to the Cushings diagnosis (He had always been a wooly mammoth in winter, so it took awhile for them to realize there was an issue when he was slow to shed.)
Had he been a “fancier” horse, I think he likely would have been shown in dressage or just English pleasure type showing. It just wasn’t their “thing” and he put in a LOT of miles on the trail. The husband usually took him out for an average of 3 hours, five days a week.
We have one with navicular, or to be exact “navicular changes”. He’s worth his weight in gold. He has leather pads and we keep him shod year round- which sucks but he’s worth it. He was diagnosed at 9 and he’s 15 now. With a great farrier, shoes year round and pads- he’s sound year round.
Good luck.
Ancient thread, but my little mare has had signs of navicular for a while. She gets a careful trim and shoes with pads in front, and most recently I had her coffin joints (?) injected because she was ouchy from heel pain, and that has helped enormously. Mostly she is no longer tripping. And she’s going down hills more willingly, not creeping along like it really hurts.
Admittedly she’s nearly 20, and not a “high performance” type horse, just a pleasure horse in the “mostly trail riding and some low-level dressage” vein. I don’t think she would have held up to a lot of jumping etc.
I had a gelding who had lesions in his navicular bone we saw after he had presented lameness on tight circle on hard surface. We gave him isoxuprine (sp?) and he stayed sound for at least 10 years after that, including jumping, trail riding, etc. We put pads on him because he had thin soles, and eventually he started developing hock arthritis. This was before hock injections were common, and he was still sound until around 20 when I lost track of him. I sold him to a family where he would be more a pet than riding horse but he still showed and took them on rides at times, as he was a safe sweetheart. I jumped him and rode him quite a lot, and it never bothered him.
My trainer has an FEI dressage horse who was diagnosed within his first year under saddle. He was supposed to be pasture sound only by 5 and put down because of pain at 6. Instead he’s 15 or 16 and still going, and going well. In his case, no shoeing was supposed to give him much time so my trainer started reading up on options. He ended up taking him barefoot (with boots for protection for the first two years, I think), and opening up his heels and strengthening his hoof structure helped. He banged himself up playing late last year, and while they were at it my trainer had his front hooves x-rayed. The navicular bone had recovered some and looked considerably better than it had when he was young.
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