Finally may have gotten to the bottom of my horse's not quite right-ness :(

[sportyspicepony]

Yah I think this will be my approach, knowing how sore she is it definitely doesn’t feel right to try to make her work even if she is willing! I’m also going to just get her on equioxx and if that helps maybe keep her in light work.

I think that was the original idea the vet was trying to convey, basically just work on pain management while the hocks fuse on their own, but if I really wanted to I could look into options for speeding the process along. However I also believe it might be worth ruling out other diagnoses first.

I think the vet maybe is just operating with like this sense of urgency to make the horse sound as quick as possible and that’s why he’s kind of rushing to pinpoint something?? Idk

[Bluey]

I would not know, but it seems that just turning a horse out and hoping doesn’t make as much sense as looking for a diagnosis and working on whatever is found, that may just be turning out, or that turning out would not be best for that?

[sportyspicepony]

Yup, my horse has seen the chiro a few times, just was wondering about massage people

[sportyspicepony]

I definitely wouldn’t say that I’m just turning her out and hoping, as I’ve been looking for a diagnosis for quite awhile now and plan to continue to do so… so… agreed

[Weezer]

I hope that you are able to find the solution to this problem. Based on what you said about the way the horse was tacked and ridden by the trainer, I wouldn’t be surprised if the horse had been drugged. I had a friend get burned really badly from buying a drugged horse so now drug tests are part of her PPEs.

[sportyspicepony]

Thank you for saying that!!!

She does tie but being a QH with a shady background, I wouldn’t be surprised if she’d done some time on the “patience pole” where people just let their horses pull against a static pole for hours until they stop trying. Unfortunately it seems to be the most common in the Western disciplines and we’ve got a lot of that around here.

After talking to a bunch of people in my area both IRL and online, I’m learning now that the vet she saw most recently, a lot of people don’t like so I did reach out for an x-ray consult of another vet that people DO like and will see what he thinks as far as next steps diagnostics wise and pursue those with him. He should be calling me back today or tomorrow with his thoughts!

We shall seeee!

[sportyspicepony]

Minor update! The other vet I sent the x-rays off to for a consultation called me back and he basically said, she’s definitely lame in the FRONT end primarily, and he thinks he could nerve block it to pinpoint it further based on the videos I sent (same ones I posted here).

And he said although there are significant changes in her hocks and they do look really bad, if you are able to get a needle in to inject them (which we are), it should make somewhat of a difference and if it doesn’t then ~maybe it’s not the hocks causing her pain~ which makes a lot of sense to me. And he was like I definitely wouldn’t recommend fusing these hocks, if hock injections aren’t working and we do determine that the hocks are the primary cause then there are other ways to try to deal with the bone pain before that. thank god lol.

Sooo I am going to make an appointment with him to do more diagnostics! My bank account is hurting but I have to try one more time bc it’s going to drive me crazy if I don’t.

[SporthorseFun]

I really like how you are handling this. Please keep us posted.

[asterix]

Just in case this is useful down the road - shockwave can help arthritic hocks quite a lot, and is not invasive. So if you need to support her there… also proper shoeing and as much turnout (ideally 24-7) as possible. I successfully managed a horse with significant hock arthritis for many years.
In the meantime, good luck with the new vet!

[sportyspicepony]

Well, the vet came and blocked her left front, and ended up having to block everything below the knee and she finally blocked out around there. so he’s coming back on Monday to ultrasound the high suspensory

Her lameness is sooo subtle I could barely see it yesterday, so I really hope it’s just a very minor strain!!! However the vet was like, knowing how tough/stoic she is with those hocks, it could be anything. Yay

[sportyspicepony]

Well the ultrasound confirmed a tiny tear in the LF high suspensory the vet says it looks like it might be old-ish and small enough that she can stay on turnout and just no exercise and check again in 2 months. Since she is a little bit less visibly lame now than she was when I first noticed it, I’m hoping it is actually on the mend, but it’ll all depend on what we find when we check it again I guess.

He also said to put her in bar shoes up front, which is another complication in my life right now Bc the farrier I thought I had lined up to replace my other one, totally ghosted me luckily I never officially fired the old one so I’m not completely without a farrier, but I am nervous about doing a ~more complicated shoeing setup~ with him.

I kind of doubt I’m going to be able to get another farrier unless I move barns… it seems to be a huge problem in my area, every day I see posts on Facebook of people begging for reliable farriers that will actually show up

I am a little nervous about leaving her on turnout but she is a chill gal, with two pasture buddies that are all friends with each other & all very low key and calm. Ugh this mare has been through it!!!

[atr]

Its really good news to get a concrete diagnosis to work with! A front suspensory tear. While a pain, is workable and will heal. In my experience, give it more time and rehab time than the vet prescribes (found it helpful to add at least a week to each step) and by the springtime, you will be good to go.

[EmilyM]

For what it’s worth I did a treatment called Anicell on a horse that had multiple soft tissue issues that had been struggling to heal in one leg. In 6 weeks the primary issue healed about 75% and 4 weeks later upt to 90%. It’s a new ish treatment that requires shockwave and then injection around the area. I want to say it cost about $1200. It’s kind of an amazing treatment and less complicated than prp that has to go directly in the hole and requires the horses to stay in for two weeks. Anicell requires movement. The leg got big for a couple weeks but it hasn’t looked better at about 6 weeks.

[sportyspicepony]

interesting! My vet actually didn’t bring up prp at all, he said shockwave might be a good option but not necessarily needed and he specifically mentioned that he thinks it’s too small of a tear for stem cell, so maybe that might be the case for prp too?

@atr

Its really good news to get a concrete diagnosis to work with! A front suspensory tear. While a pain, is workable and will heal. In my experience, give it more time and rehab time than the vet prescribes (found it helpful to add at least a week to each step) and by the springtime, you will be good to go.

thank you for the kind words!!! I do feel better at least knowing what it is now, hopefully that’s ~all~ that it is lol.