So my gelding continues to be lame. We are waiting on an appointment with the best diagnostician in the area, in the meantime, who wants to place wagers with me?
What I know. He looks like crap at the trot and the canter. Whichever hind is on the outside looks lame, but the right is worse and he has a right hip hike. We blocked from the fetlock down with a 4-way and then from the suspensory origin on both hinds, one at a time. None of them made a noticeable difference. Then he reacted to the 4-way on the right hind and we’ve been screwing around with a fat leg for 10 days.
Of note, flexions didn’t obviously point to hocks or stifles. He didn’t present as sore or stuck in his SI. No heat or swelling in hocks or stifles. Backs up evenly. Will pick up and hold both hind feet and will stretch them behind when asked. That said, he’d really like you to give him the right one back.
He doesn’t want his right hip touched - either at the point of hip, or back at the head of the femur / greater trochanter area. This is different left to right. When allowed to canter on the lunge he repeatedly (every circle or two) kicks out behind, more on the right lead than the left. This is not normal for him.
He’s weight bearing on both hinds. He has been annoyed by the farrier the past few appointments, and when consulted post blocking (he pulled a front shoe) farrier says he’s leaning more than he used to. If I were judging based on how he stands and moves, I’d be betting on hocks (wants his toes down in the dirt and the shavings, kind of snappy, a bit stabby behind), but I don’t think it’s the whole issue.
He did slip and fall in the pasture on his right hip last summer. After that he needed chiro and we ended up injecting his lower hocks a month or so later (no x-rays, it had helped 15 months before that so we did it again).
editing to add: he’s been maybe a bit slow to warm up and stiff bending to the left most of the winter, but wasn’t obviously off. This became pretty acute and easy to see after it snowed and I was dumb enough to let him be outside in it while I cleaned stalls multiple days in a row. It is entirely possible he slipped or fell when I wasn’t watching.
I read every COTH and H&H thread I could find about hip issues and trochanteric bursitis sounds like a real possibility, though he’s clearly not equally bilaterally sore.
If you’ve had a horse with hip issues (not SI, but hip) such as trochanteric bursitis, arthritis, or a fracture, how did it look different from a stifle or hock issue? How did the horse react to palpation or trigger point pressure of various places?
