Chronic suspensory :(

[sportyspicepony]

@beowulf

Would still think you should post pictures of the feet. Chronic suspensories seem to have a trim component in my experience.

I’m not against doing this, but I have posted pics of my horses’ feet in the past, got very negative feedback, tried for months to find a new farrier and basically failed… it’s very difficult to find farriers in my area so I’m somewhat stuck at the moment unless I move barns. As a part of the diagnostic process to figure out what was going on up front, I got x rays of her front feet done with basically nothing found… Since her diagnosis she’s been in egg bar shoes, and I’ve asked my vet to check her feet each time he’s been out and he’s been happy with how they look so I’m gonna have to just accept that for now.

@JB

The TRH Stim test is easy, and the reason you want that test, this time of year, is it’s much better at finding earlier PPID, well before the ACTH test will pick it up .

thank you!! will check this out

[Tha_Ridge]

Shockwave (for suspensories, and perhaps in general) is a waste of money, IMO… Ask me how I know. I saw a lot more success with cold laser on a suspensory. Also, look higher up too—I know your horse has a front suspensory, but for my hind suspensory, once we started lasering his back, we saw a lot of improvement very quickly. Much faster than three months of money wasted on shockwave.

[sportyspicepony]

Actually I am gonna ask you how you know…. What was the nature of your horse’s hind suspensory (acute?) I think the way people address these different injuries are different so what worked for you may not work for me… but idk!

Shockwave is one of the only options that’s been presented to me as something that might work

[Tha_Ridge]

@sportyspicepony

Actually I am gonna ask you how you know…. What was the nature of your horse’s hind suspensory (acute?)

I actually suspect it was chronic (and missed during a very thorough, expensive PPE), but was aggravated after showing on grass in studs. It was a strain, not a tear. Obviously, my experience is but one account and as you said, everyone’s approach is so different, but we saw no change on ultrasound after three months of shockwave. That was enough evidence for me to try something new (the cold laser), in which case we saw enough progress for me to at least get the horse sound enough to sell.

[hillary_again]

Hi OP: my horse is just coming back into full work after a year of recovery for a suspensory issue. My advice: put your horse on Reserpine or something similar. It’s really tough for them to be confined when barnmates are out of the barn in turnout, and there are other times that there’s just too much energy. I wish I had put my horse on a tranq the day back from the vet clinic. Instead, I didn’t like the idea and tried to make a go of the rehab without it. Dumb! She has to rest to heal the injury. You don’t want to prolong the rehab, or have to do it again… My stubbornness cost months of delay in recovery and caused a lot of risk to me (my horse spooked and ran into me several times during the 15 min/day walks in the early part of treatment). Best wishes to you for a full recovery for your mare!

[sportyspicepony]

That is such a bummer! But glad you were able to get it fixed up eventually. I will add cold laser to the list of things to ask my vet about.

[sportyspicepony]

Totally get this, and sorry that you had so many rehab setbacks she’s actually doing ok so far being by herself in turnout (as far as I’ve seen/heard)… she’s adjacent to horse friends on two sides of her paddock so that definitely helps. I’m definitely not opposed to sedation! We’ll see how things go.

[mlb722]

Agree with testing for PPID. My mare was only 13-14 and had no other symptoms except for a soft tissue injury. She had three soft tissue injuries in total.

[sportyspicepony]

I have a tentatively happy and cautiously hopeful update!! After basically starting over from square one with the rehab process, we’re finally starting to see some good improvement on my horse’s suspensory she’s been separated from her friends in a small paddock since late January up until last week, and went through 3 rounds of shockwave treatment. I did get her tested for cushings as a few people suggested but that came back negative which I was pretty happy about!

Today the vet ultrasounded her and watched her wtc on a lunge line and said she looks sounder and her injury looks better than it ever has this entire time!!! we are gonna start tack walking again and do that for 3 weeks, and then he also said we can incorporate some trot for the 3 weeks after that, then re check it in six weeks.

I’m still very nervous about trotting her that soon but I’ll just take it one day at a time; for now I’m just happy I get to go tack up my pony tomorrow and sit on her again!!!

[lenapesadie]

Woohoo!

I’m happy for you!

[Live_Wire]

I jumped on this to read through comments because there is always such a wealth of knowledge/experiences.

I’m so happy to hear that the diagnose is trending in a postive way! I successfully rehabbed a hind suspensory with small turn out because it was the best/only option for my horse. He would have killed himself in his stall - that was with reserpine on board. Several years later, and many knocks on wood, you’d never know.

I’d like to mimic what Beowulf said about feet. A LOT of suspensories in my experience can be traced back to the feet/angles. I sympathize with you… i know how hard it can be to find a good farrier. I live in an area that has only a few good farriers, all of whom seem to have full books. I would reccommend you keep trying and don’t close that chapter on that book - it may not happen immediately, but you’ll find a better one.

[sportyspicepony]

Yah, it’s honestly hard not to feel extremely powerless and hopeless about the feet situation because I definitely don’t have the resources to dedicate to learning how to trim myself and I don’t have a professional that I trust well enough to even tell me whether her feet look good or not. The vet thinks they’re fine; the internet thinks they are not fine, and even the horse people I know who use different farriers don’t necessarily have better feet than mine to my uneducated eye but I also feel like I have no idea what I’m talking about.

I do think my horse has a lot of bodily disfunction that we need to address or else she’ll just keep getting chronic injuries, but I’m not sure if it’s coming from her feet or her hocks or just her general bad posture.

I have been actually thinking about biting the bullet for the super expensive “traveling horse witch” consultation bc I haven’t gotten a lot of good results with the bodyworkers I use around here and I’d just love to see if there’s something more or different I could be doing to help improve her overall body condition and prevent further injuries.

Horses are fun

[SporthorseFun]

For what it is worth, and I am not recommending this, just sharing what happened with my horse … hand walking, then small turnout is so incredibly hard. Trazadone made my horse sleepy until he heard a noise, any noise, and then he went full gallop with a buck and a rear thrown in. It made me a complete wreck. Finally, gave him an acre of flat grassy healthy pasture, and he was calm. However, he was at home, and I always had an eye on him. Still nerve-wracking as you want to follow rehab protocol to the letter. However, we needed him quiet with time to heal. He did heal, but he is prone to reinjury, and we have retired him. I feel for you and hope you can get this sorted right away.

[SporthorseFun]

I second this. It still is very painful to KNOW that bad farrier work was so detrimental to my horse. He was so talented, but low angles made him more post legged, and he had a stifle issue that would heal and be fine with balanced, supported hooves. Then queue irritated suspensory, on top of the stifle, while the angles were negative.

One bad trim from a new farrier can wreck a horse for half a year, or more. Beware of talk, see previous work, get to know what good farrier work looks like. Maybe I am saying too much. Anyway, my thoughts.

Edited for clarity.

[SporthorseFun]

Awesome! Good job!