That’s too bad. I don’t have any other suggestions, I’m afraid. Please let us know what you do end up trying and how it works out.
It is possible that he has something else going on besides the KS. That is what happened to me. I had the lig snip done and he came up lame on LF (though his back was better.) Turned out he had ECVM (cervical arthritis/malformation). He never had any symptoms of this beforehand.
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Well along with the kissing spines he could also have some facet pain at the bottom of his spinous processes, but it takes a large x-ray unit to look. He also has negative coffin bone angles in both hind, but I took x-rays as soon as I got him, because I figured he would have them. I doubt that his hind feet are bothering him any longer. I am sure it is the kissing spines. Today he had a Magna Wave session with Jason Christopher. My vet wanted me to try it, so I said, why not. He was working on the vet’s shoulder when I got to the barn and he said it was wonderful. I can’t imagine that it will help him a whole lot, but I am going to get 3 sessions.
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For what it’s worth, my gelding with KS was incredibly uncomfortable (with treatments like meso/injections) until I fixed his NPA behind. I ended up needing to switch farriers and put him in shoes all around - he was previously barefoot… Xrays confirmed he had less than 5mm soledepth when the norm is 14… :eek: He lived in rim pads to elevate the sole off the ground (to prevent shearing of sole from substrate) and shoes behind until it was fixed - and it took about a year.
Until I got his hind feet under control and comfortable, he was very tight and tense behind. So if you’re seeing he has an NPA still, don’t rule it out as a cause of backsoreness and pain. It puts a lot of stress on the hocks, suspensories, and SI – which makes for a lot of discomfort. NPA angles tend to crush heel and have no sole for impact absorption - in my experience dealing with it, horses with NPA angles almost always have sore suspensories and are borderline laminitic in the sense there is increased inflammation of the laminae leading to increased sensitivity over ground.
More of my two cents – horses with KS need excellent farriers. They tend to not be able to tolerate poor angles, and any “bad trimming” tends to exacerbate their KS issues.
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I agree with most everything you said, and for a long time I thought his desire not to canter was because of his NPA angle behind. I doubt there is a thoroughbred horse, racing type, alive that has 14+mm of sole, but he does have more than 10mm of sole behind now. I do have him barefoot behind, because I wanted his feet to remodel as much as they could. He now has good heels behind, flat and wide, really good cup and sole depth, for a thoroughbred. I also keep his feet trimmed between farrier visits to keep his toes short and break over good. He does have shoes on in front and 5 weeks is the max time between shoeings. I might add the farrier is real good, and knows how to do a lot. I am not a fan of barefoot, and like a horse’s sole off the ground, but I have had many racehorses, and they all had NPAs behind, and leaving them barefoot for a least a year really helps the integrity of the foot.
Just wanted to let everyone know, and hopefully you will comment, that my horse had a Magna Wave session Monday, when I rode him Tuesday, he was much, much better, maybe normal going right. He just raised his neck up, maybe a foot, nice and round and soft. He didn’t go as good to the left, but still much better than he has been for the past month. I am a skeptic, so I was truly amazed. I rode him again yesterday just to see what would happen and he went about the same to the left, and not quite as good to the right as he did Tuesday, but still much better. I had already scheduled 2 more sessions, with one Friday. I know it is not going to make him not have kissing spines, but it could take away the soreness in his soft tissue, keep the inflammation down, and keep the bones from remodeling. Oh please, let it be.
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I thought I would update, being that no one has responded to my inquires lately. My last post I said we had a Magna Wave session and the next couple of days he went much better. He has had 2 more Magna Wave sessions, and really doesn’t show much improvement later. I am also giving him bute and it is really not doing much for him. He is very heavy on his forehand and just stubs along.
I don’t do much, just mostly walk, stretching exercises, turn on the haunches, leg yields, shoulder in and haunches in. He does all that real good at a walk. You really wouldn’t think there was anything wrong with him at a walk, as he moves right along. But in a trot he is horrible, just stubbing along, and he feels about the same on both diagonals. It has been 5 1/2 weeks since he was injected. He was moving real good before being injected, and he was on bute, but the thought was that hopefully the the injections he wouldn’t need bute. Bute helps him very little now, if at all.
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Well, bute can hide a lot of pain. To me it doesn’t sound like the injections, given by a vet, caused a problem. It sounds like his KS is catching up with him. He seems happy at the walk, maybe just go from there and see how he responds? My friend’s gelding who was eventually diagnosed with KS couldn’t even comfortably walk with a rider on and got very aggro. She didn’t do a PPE but we suspect he was drugged when shown to her.
BTW, what is NPA?
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Negative palmer angle. What do you mean, “just go from there and see how he responds”?
I’m in Northern VA, if you’re anywhere near a Lyme prevalent area I’d test just to make sure.
It really sucks to see your horse deteriorate and be in more pain. I had to call it quits with my last horse at age 14 and retire him for his comfort because continuing to rehab the same injury for my benefit of riding wasn’t worth it.
I think what she’s saying is to keep walking as long as your horse is comfortable and consider stopping riding all together when your horse is no longer comfortable. You may have to retire your horse.
It really sucks that it seems the injections made him worse but it really is possible it’s not connected and he just got worse. Are you anywhere near where there’s winter? Is it suddenly colder which would explain more pain and stiffness? Did his turnout situation or barn change at all?
Did your vet diagnose and treat while your horse was on regular bute? In my mind regular bute is kind of your end of the road option. There are pain meds that aren’t as tough on their organs/guts and usually they want to diagnose and treat without bute covering anything up.
Do you have videos of him going, preferably both of before and after injections?
Do you have photos of his feet?
Unfortunately with KS, I’ve never seen KS be the only issue bothering the horse. Usually something else exacerbates the KS, or, something results in injury directly because of the KS. Because it is a “systemic” issue in that the soreness tends to travel, most KS horses have sore backs, SIs, suspensories, and stifles.
Because KS is incurable, a lot of people opt to treat the symptoms as long as they can manage QOL. There’s a lot you can do to help a KS horse:
- as much turnout as possible - 24/7 turnout sees the best improvement
- managing inflammation (which turnout helps with, as does treating with something like devil’s claw/yucca)
- staying on top of good hoof angles - an NPA (negative palmar (for back) / plantar (for front) angles will cause significant soreness in any horse let alone a KS horse)
- avoiding circles, lunging,
- treating symptoms such as shockwave for back, injections/mesotherapy to “manage” pain or break pain cycle
- ruling out saddle fit issues 100%
- continued and consistent carrot stretches to build topline and back strength / break bad postural habits
I really have not had injections directly correlate to making KS worse. What I have seen happen, and you may want to double check this, is some injections (steroid based) can trigger laminitic episodes. You may want to have your vet double check, including measuring sole depth (done by x-ray) – which will also illuminate whether your horse has NPAs and thin soles that may be contributing to the issue.
The other thing, sometimes injections don’t make the area that they were injected into worse, BUT, in the process of that area feeling better the horse has another area that becomes just as sore, or was sore before, but the pain of their back took precedence. For example many KS horses have bilaterial suspensory desmitis – but the usual symptoms for BSD were hidden because the horse’s primary pain was coming from their back – so they were protecting their back and moving differently than a horse with BSD would normally move… for example, if you treated a BSD horse with shockwave over their back for their KS, they commonly have a few very good days or weeks post shockwave therapy, and then become markedly lame behind (or sometimes on a front) because once the initial pain relief wore off, the next part of their body that complained the most was their suspensories.
Sometimes pain is like a rotten onion in that, you peel back many layers to get to the answer… and sometimes, it takes a lot of peeling to get to the problem.
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I second what beowulf says. Dealt with it myself trying to chase all of the compensatory issues. You might also be dealing with SI pain and other complications behind that are related to the KS and NPA. That could also include bilateral forelimb issues if part of the compensating is overloading the front end. If the quality of the feet has improved a lot, but the angles are still bad, I think it’s time to put shoes on behind. And possibly with a wedge pad. Good to be applying that to a foot that is not so crushed and under run.
Also, Sarapin isn’t a block. It’s a pretty mild plant derived agent used for neuromuscular analgesic effect, but it does not have any anaesthetic effect.
I thank everyone for your comments. I am not going to bother you all anymore, because we are not getting anywhere, and there is probably no where we can get. He could have some outlandish thing like the lyme thing or something, but I doubt it.
Just so you know where I am coming from, I have a lot of experience with horses, especially racehorses. I have been on many, many sore, lame horses, with knees, ankles, feet, hocks stifles, ligaments, tendons, bucked shins, splints, chips, etc., etc. I have never been on a horse with his problem, and his problem is kissing spines, and if you looked at his x rays you wouldn’t doubt it. He is only 6 years old and has really deteriorated over the past 2 years. I was just hoping I could ride for a couple of more years, because I am 75, and I just can’t start with another horse, but I think he is finished.
His clock is ticking. If he was going ok on bute before, personally, I’d just put him back on it and enjoy what you’ve got. Perhaps try equioxx to see if you get a similar result.
It’s not about “you get what you pay for”. Horses are heart breakers, be it $400 or $400,000.
Also, it’s never too late to try again.
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He is beautiful, I’m so sorry you are dealing with this. It’s frustrating in general, but especially with such a young horse. And you are awesome for still riding at 75!
I’m really sorry about your horse, I really truly am he’s beautiful. I’ve been there multiple times and it sucks. There’s a whole host of feelings and grief that you have to work through before acceptance. There’s still a level of regret that I have over my own retired boy.
I just wanted to address this comment because I know it’s directed at me. I got this information from a huge, multivet, very well regarded vet practice in northern va. A number of their vets are published on a regular basis in horse magazines and actual vet studies. I don’t take what they say lightly. They do thousands of joint injections a year and push to have a negative lyme test in hand before injecting a joint. It’s very common in my area, I have no idea where you are so it might be grasping at straws if it’s not in your area. I just want others to know who might search on this topic in the future that it is a real possibility. It’s a $100 test, could explain the increase in pain after the injection and could also explain all over and shifting body soreness.
I just moved to a new barn and one of the horses is on doxy, they did a routine Lyme test and found his chronic levels to be 9,000…1200 is the upper limit of normal. This horse hasn’t been showing any side effects, is currently sound and showing. From his treatment he’s starting to have some more personality and he just started. Prey animals are very good at hiding pain, whether it be compensating pain, joint pain, or pain from kissing spines. I really hope you can figure out something to help your horse be more comfortable.
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How is his gut? is he on anything to protect it from all that bute? Yes fix the NPA behind ASAP and also make sure his front feet are perrrfect. Then try what ever modalities and exercises seem to have given him temporary relief in the past and see if the results last longer or his muscling improves.
It would not be a terrible thing to retire him. It also isn’t impossible to start again. Would it be an option to get an older horse next time?
