Yep, he’s been back sore even though I haven’t ridden since the saddle fitter came out in September. And before that it was very light riding. No more than 20 minutes 1-2 times a week, trying to leg him back up from his injury, and was only in practice for about 2 months.
I will try my best to get photos this weekend of his feet. In MY opinion, he’s underrun on his left front, and as I said above, he’s always been upright and clubby on the right. My farrier has always “trimmed to the hoof” meaning he will not try to trim down the clubby foot to match, which I’ve always thought to be right. However, regardless of how he trims the other foot, it’s always underrun, without shoes, with shoes, and we keep his toes short, and on a 4 week cycle. I’ll be curious what is to be said about his feet when I get photos.
Lyme is possible but not at the top of my list. We just don’t see it really here from my experience and my vet’s experience. But anything is possible. I’ll be sure to mention it!
I would think the vet would start with a basic lameness exam including flexions. Based on that would determine what blocks or xrays are necessary to narrow it down farther.
Bloodwork might be a good idea for EPM or Lyme or PSSM/EPSM.
Many vets in our area use Robaxin for back pain. It can sometime break the cycle of pain and tightness.
If the PEMF treatment helped before have you considered having it done again?
Did either the massage therapist or chiropractor give you any exercises to do in between visits? Both of mine normally give me stretches and massages to do in between.
My current chiro for my OTTB developed Posture Prep and I used that quite a bit to help with my body sore OTTB. It is basically a fancy curry but there is a whole diagram on how to use it therapeutically rather than as just grooming tool. Yes, you use it on the legs and use a fair amount of pressure. At first Carson wasn’t too thrilled with it but over time he started to like it. He will actually lean into it now. He never does that with the regular curry.
I went through the whole front feet & lower leg blocks, feet xrays, neck xrays, hock and stifle xrays, Osphos for pedal osteitis, Lyme testing, EPM testing, time off and never found anything specific yet he was bodysore everywhere. Vet was happy with the shoeing.
In the end we put him on estrone, a few massages, a few chiro sessions, Magrestore, Posture Prep a few times a week and worked through it. He cannot go more than a couple of days without being ridden. I think he will always be one of those horses that needs to stay in work to stay sound. Fitness and muscle support helps an amazing amount.
Yes, I hated working a NQR horse but after all the diagnostics we did I was reasonably sure that he did not have an injury that would be made worse by work. Lots of forward walk and trot to start. He worked, no meandering. No sitting trot. We tried to prevent him from going around inverted. I did not lunge or do small circles at first. It was weeks before I added the canter back and when I did I made sure it was short canters and a quality canter to build it back up.
As a side note my massage therapist is my saddle fitter so she checked the fit and made some minor shimming adjustments but nothing major. So saddle fit was never an issue for him.
I forgot to add- my horse’s right front is a bit clubby too. He gets a small leather wedge pad on his left front since the LF is a little underrun. So another similarity to your horse.
I don’t know of anyone specifically. I use Brandon Equine Medical Center whom has a sports medicine branch, but I’m honestly not SURE if they actually have a specialist.
I’ll be sure to mention EPM and Lyme regardless, I just remember when I first got him and was concerned about his sensitivity to brushing, that the vet thought those were not of concern due to the area. But anything is truly possible.
I don’t know of a PEMF person around here any longer. The person donated from the track and doesn’t live here all year (seasonal track person). The chiro and massage therapist both told me to do carrot stretches, which we do. The shoulder stretch however scared me this past weekend with his swapping back and forth on his hind legs.
I will look into the Posture Prep. I’ve never heard of it before!
I won’t address what I’ve said before because we don’t have the same point of view regarding playing in horses but rearing is quite hard on the back and hocks.
Your horse being sore from confinement makes me also think of athritic changes.
And this :
2 horses I know of that had a « special » way of going from behind (unrelated to their breed) have had previous pelvis injuries. One from a difficult foaling and the other one from a fall.
If PEMF helped him, I would be inclined to think that the issue is muscular or connective tissue related. A myofascial specialist may help, and my first go-to would probably be a course of methocarbamol (Robaxin) to see if you can release the tension that may be perpetuating the pain cycle.
It may be cost effective for you to consider whether or not you can afford to lease a PEMF system for a month or so. I use the ActivoMed system, and I believe you can lease one for around $300 for a month. You would then potentially be able to use it daily and see if it makes a difference. We have seen real performance improvements using ours and a few who have seen the improvements have gone out and bought one after trying mine.
@One Two Three do you have a really good lameness/sports medicine vet?
IME back pain, and disentangling primary and secondary lameness, is the kind of thing that can take months of vet appointments and all the money if you have an o.k. vet, and can be much more quickly and efficiently solved if you have a really, really excellent lameness vet – (and here’s the important part) who sees/images/treats back issues day in and day out.
I would second the advice to start with a full lameness workup to identify the most suspicious areas for follow-up, and then make decisions about imaging and other diagnostics from there. I’d personally want to investigate the mechanical stuff before pulling titers for things and running too many tests, given how much evidence to date is pointing to pain localized to the back. Back issues can be associated with feet, but also with hocks, and also with stifles, and so on, or with disease, or they can be primary. There’s just no way to get to the bottom of it without more information, but a good vet can usually interpret what they see on flexions and palpation and by watching the horse go and make a plan for tackling the biggest question marks first.
Anyway, I’d recommend doing what it takes to get your horse to whoever in your region has the best reputation for solving back pain. The one who diagnosed my horse’s back issue found it and developed a good treatment plan in a single visit, after multiple other generally decent lameness vets had failed to identify any back pain over the preceding months (I wasted over $1500 in that process). Since then several friends with ‘cold backed’ or ‘tight’ OTTBs have gotten their horses moving much more comfortably after engaging this same vet. Kissing spine is particularly common in thoroughbreds I believe (I recall reading something about less space between spinous processes in TBs creating greater KS risk but don’t remember the source off the top of my head), and SI issues anecdotally seem quite common in horses who’ve raced. Anyway, I’d be pretty suspicious about a skeletal issue given the breed, the amount of time he spent on the track, and the timing of the problems.
Good luck! Hope you can get to the bottom of it quickly and get him comfortable.
I don’t remember - where did he come from? Where was he born, where has he lived, before you got him? EPM protozoa can be contracted and stay dormant for years, until some stress “activates” them. Lyme can be really low grade and chronic.
He was born, raised, trained, and raced exclusively here in Florida. He’s never left the state, just traveled between tracks down here.
I’m going to try and find a good specialist to call versus my vet–although they have a sports medicine facility, I’ve never really cared for the attention to detail they’ve offered in the past over smaller issues, and as many have pointed out, one good vet visit could save hundreds versus several sub par ones.
Hoof photos this weekend–they probably won’t be pretty because he is on week almost 5, the farrier won’t be out until after the holiday next week, so they’ll be as messy as they get. He’s usually on a 4 week cycle
For back/pelvis, you’d want the larger size. It’s supposed to have a field of 10 inches depth on either side of the loop. cost is around $300 and they guarantee at least 150 treatments. You need to let the battery rest at least 2 hours in between the 15ish minute automatic cycle or it will diminish battery life and reduce number of treatments. You need a vet’s prescription to buy one. After having my vet use it a couple of times on my horse during his usual acupuncture/chiro visits and watching his reaction, I had her call in one for me. I’ve also used it on my SI area with some relief. Anyway, as far as PEMF goes, it’s not bad bang for buck.
If you can’t find a good sports/lameness vet in your area (I’m sure there must be some), it might be worthwhile to haul to one of the bigger clinics in Ocala. Especially if you ultimately have to image the pelvis or spine, this is easier to do at a clinic setting than with some of the portable equipment. It may seem pretty pricey but in the long run, it can save you money to go straight to the experts with all the bells and whistles than to look into the problem in spurts with various barn calls. Ask me how I know :lol:
I’ve had a very long road with back pain and body soreness and shifting mild lameness issues. It is FAR easier to find a swollen leg or obvious lameness and just hone in on that typically easy diagnosis. There can be so many things in play when it comes to what you’ve got going on, particularly when it gets to be chronic in nature, which it sure sounds like given how he came off the track. Even with the experts, it can take time to peel back all the layers of the onion on this. Might need the feet addressed, might need changes in diet if anything is metabolic related, might need a low level exercise routine that is an every day thing, you may find several areas of osteoarthritis or bony issues and it can take time to figure out which is really bothering the horse. That could take rounds of Robaxin or steroids to unravel. Or, you might come across something obvious once you start imaging, and maybe that’s the magic bullet in all of it.
Anyway, even with my horse who now has known osteoarthritis and other problems, the rechecks are always pretty much the same when you are dealing with performance and behavior issues. Whole horse is examined and palpated. Range of motion is checked in a variety of body parts. Maybe hoof testers. Moving in straight lines and circles on soft ground and hard ground. Maybe flexions. Maybe the horse is also watched ridden. Then the game plan is either continued or revised (including advising no treatment and to keep up the good work).
This. This excellent advice was similarly given to me by my very experienced trainer when I had a horse with similar problems to yours. It may feel more expensive, but in reality, going to the high-quality diagnostics & experience you need for these types of things is much better than spending months bleeding incremental money down rabbit holes.
I also had a veteran OTTB who excelled in what I called “Pasture X-Games” – yes, playing hard is a thing! Some horses are just harder on themselves then others (why walk calmly in for dinner through the mud when you can GALLOP AT TERMINAL VELOCITY!?), for mine, just a big, exuberant personality.
I was lucky at the time he started having some issues that he was insured for a year (back when you could still insure cheap horses), so I took him to NC State Ortho Wizard for a bone scan. They then followed up areas that lit up with radiographs. It allowed us to see that he had arthritic changes in his lumber vertebrae - with injections & correct work, he got back to his sport career (until he injured something else :/).
Presentation was murky, even though my regular vet is excellent with very experienced eyes, so he had no problem agreed to the NCSU referral. Had I not done the imagery, I would very likely have wasted a lot of money injecting hocks or stifles or whatnot. I am so grateful for the emphatic advice that paid off.
I am poor, I completely & totally get money stress & bad timing. Even with the insurance, it’s not like it was free. But in the long run, it really will save you money, time, and everything else to find the best, most experienced sports medicine ortho you can with good diagnostic equipment & hopefully who is also practical enough not to take you through the financial ringer any more than necessary.
This will get you the best possible outcome for you & your horse. Knowledge truly is power in this case, you have to know what you have. Secondary therapies can come later, for now, they are no better than expensive shots in the dark.
Please don’t take internet guesses as anything more than internet guesses, but if this was my horse (since it sounds like my horse, LOL), if I couldn’t do a bone scan, I’d definitely want back radiographs first, then stifles/hocks/feet.
Also, six months in a stall shocked me. Is that a typo? That will do a number on just about any horse’s joints. My older gelding has had DDFT tears, he was on small pen rest for 6 weeks. I would be wanting a lot of justification & hard evidence from any vet who wanted to immobilize a horse for that long.
Thanks for the words, it’s all very helpful. I’m going to do some researching on some of the other vets in the general area, and see what I come up with. My vet might have a specialist, the practice has like, 5 vets, but I don’t see one listed for lameness or sports medicine specifically, and if that’s the case I don’t want my regular vet evaluating this issue, necessarily, because I had to ask for the ultrasound that diagnosed my horse’s tear, which is why I was prompted to post this in the beginning, so I knew what to “ask” her for. Probably isn’t how a vet visit of this magnitude should go. I do live in an area full of vets, and hauling to Ocala might be an option, but it’s a long trip, especially for a horse with a sore back, so I’m hoping I can find something closer.
I have a WB who does that (picks his hinds up more than his fronts), but he’s done it since he was a foal. He also has a club foot, and plays hard. Not body slamming the other horses because I keep him separated, but running the fence lines and stopping and turning hard with lots of rearing.
He also has quite a bit of Arab in him, and seems to still be sound at 14. But then, I’ve babied him under saddle because I knew that the club was a significant risk factor and I’d like to still be riding him when he’s 30.
He’s only been shod in front for a very short time when he was a yearling, after he had check ligament surgery for the club (surgery which may or may not have helped).
Thank you for this. You’re very correct, as I’m learning from multiple people who have responded–a good vet is going to save me the most money, and heartache, it seems.
So yes, he was on stall rest for 6 months. He was allowed controlled walking 15 minutes per day, twice a day. NO turnout. He was too hard on his leg. We tried giving him round pen turnout because he had stall fever reallllly bad, but he would just bounce around the roundpen, and it actually caused a minor setback in his recovery because it returned inflammation to his tendon. He went back to controlled walking and strict stall rest with sedatives (because he would get really sassy during his hand walks and wasn’t particularly happy in his stall). 6 months stall rest seems to be about the golden ticket for a tendon tear, sometimes more, but 6 months when dealing with a tear. Controlled walks to help the craziness, and to help start lay down tendon fibers as he healed. The justification was the ultrasound–it was torn–and the fact that he reinjured/had a set back in round pen turnout. He has a huge personality and can’t just hang out in turnout all night. He HAS to play, and if he’s alone in turnout, he’ll pace, which wasn’t what we wanted for his leg, either.
I did just find his last veterinary chiropractic workup. This was done by a licensed vet who specializes in chiropractics. There was a lot of work done on his back, so maybe someone who has more knowledge than me could see something here that might shed more light:
"Presenting today for spinal manipulation for general health and rehab. May have ‘fusion’ of joint in lh per o.
Exam
BARH t= 100. hr 36, rr 12 mm pink, moist crt < 2.0 h/l/gi ascult . CN wnl , DP wnl. Good Body condition. Just starting rehab for
DDF and check ligament injury in the lf. Dental float last week. He has a history of being sensitive to touch and is fussy/unhappy under saddle
** His lumbar spine was curved rightward approx 1/2" off compared to thoracic’s **
EXAM
Walk straight line: neck in extenion . slow left hind, tail right , rt hip low
Circle right: left hind adduction
Circle left same
Backing: wnl
Proprioception: wnl
Tail pull static wnl
Hyoid: left Ventral TMJ: wnl Dorsal TMJ: upper right
Poll lightly OV left
Cervical vertebrea wnl
RF coffin joint
LF wnl
RH fetlocks sesamoids latera, patella lateral
LH wnl
Withers wnl
Thoracic Spine wnl
Lumbar spine LV 1, 2,3 dsp dorsal and right -
Pelvis Left PI Ilium , Right As Ilium
Sacrum bilateral base ventral/left
Assessment
healthy gelding, ok for adjusting
PLAN’
Adjusted all restrictions
His lumbar vertebrea required multiple adjustments plus several long-holds to get them to hold. He leaned into this treatment several
times, putting his weight into it."
I don’t know enough about equine chiropratic to know if it works or doesn’t work. I am interested to know if your chiroprator sees clubby right front with lumber region being out dorsal / right normally.
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