I know there are tons of threads on kissing spine but I have not found any that address my specific concerns.
Here is the background: I sold a 7 year old gelding last summer. Long story short he was supposed to be HUS stallion prospect, but just never quite fit in. I tried putting him over fences, he liked it, but had a sloppy form. Our personalities clashed, so I decided to start looking for a home for him with someone he got along with and didn’t have as lofty of goals as I do. I ended up leasing him to a very nice lesson program a couple hours south of me. Within 3 weeks, one of the students (14 year old girl) fell in love with him, mom bought the horse for her, seemed like happily ever after.
Last week I get a text from the mom that daughter had been thrown the last 2 times she rode the horse and that he seemed sore over his withers. They are very new to horses and in the learning process, so I was happy to hear they scheduled an appointment for xrays and ultrasound. Yesterday I get a text saying he has a severe case of kissing spine in the area of T17. They are distraught and I am wanting desperately to help them. As big of a jackass as the horse was for me, I still love him dearly and he is the girl’s whole world. Now they don’t own a saddle but use one from the lesson program. They are not great saddles. They are crap-made (country omitted to avoid offending anyone) from places that are not well known for maufacturing great fitting saddles. I can imagine the saddle does not fit him and may even be contacting his withers, but don’t know for sure.
So, does anyone have knowledge of success in rehabing a horse with KS by changing to a better fitting saddle, rest, and some strengthening? It’s doubtful they could afford surgery on the horse, and seems like surgery is up in the air whether or not it’s succssful. I have offered up my old Butet that I jumped him in when I still had him. I know it will fit him better, but I wonder if it will be enough. What about saddle pads? Are there any specific pads that could help aleviate some pressure? I don’t know if she has been taught to push the saddle pad up in to the gullet to get it off his withers, or if pressure from the pad would even be enough to cause KS; I was taught at a very young age to do so, and haven’t ever dealt with back injuries, so I correlate the two.
I guess I’m looking for some reasurance that we can make this ok and that maybe a different saddle can make at least some difference.
Are you sure the kissing spine was in T17? Not T1-T7? That would make more sense for soreness around the withers.
My retired horse has 7 sites of kissing spine under the saddle area, and a proper fitting saddle made a world of difference. What you need is plenty of clearance and gullet width, not a treeless. He really liked a fleece with his saddle too, but that may have just been because he is chestnut lol.
My guy did not have severe sites, all were fairly mild, so my experience may be meaningless for this case. He sure liked his acupuncture though!
I do not have kissing spine experience with a horse that volatile. My horse only exhibited stiffness, despite having considerable impingement. He is very, VERY specific about what he likes in a saddle, but the saddle itself isn’t anything special. It just happens to fit really well.
There’s a Kissing Spine FB group and the question about saddles comes up quite often. There doesn’t seem to be one saddle that works better than others, just an emphasis on saddles that fit really, really well.
If this were my kid, and I couldn’t ride the horse myself I’d inject the back, get a saddle that fits, and find a trainer willing to try to work the horse in a gymnastic way.
I don’t think there’s any way to truly predict whether it will work or not. So far injections and work are working well for my horse, and apparently it does work to resolution for some horses, but not all. I haven’t played this game long enough to truly have an opinion.
[QUOTE=CrotchetyDQ;8472291]
Are you sure the kissing spine was in T17? Not T1-T7? That would make more sense for soreness around the withers.
My retired horse has 7 sites of kissing spine under the saddle area, and a proper fitting saddle made a world of difference. What you need is plenty of clearance and gullet width, not a treeless. He really liked a fleece with his saddle too, but that may have just been because he is chestnut lol.
My guy did not have severe sites, all were fairly mild, so my experience may be meaningless for this case. He sure liked his acupuncture though![/QUOTE]
Good catch! After a quick google search to get the letters and numbers straight, looks like there are 18 thoracic, so 17 would be quite a ways back. That’s what the image says, “kissing spines with one override, severe, t17”. Shows a little depiction of a horse with circle drawn over mid-withers through mid-back, I’m working with third hand knowledge here so it’s hard for me to get clarification.
I’m going to meet her part way next week and let her borrow my saddle. They are looking in to chiro, injections, and possible acupuncture. So I would think all the above would be an appropriate first step, and go from there. If this combo doesn’t help and the saddle doesn’t provide some relief, I think next step would be a saddle fitting appointment. I don’t think they could splurge much on a high end saddle, but it’s entirely possible he fits and likes any range of saddle so I guess that is a route?
He’s an appendix, but more TB than QH, shaped like a QH but not huge bodied. My very first close contact saddle was a wide tree that I had bought for a super big bodied full QH, and it was too wide for him. So I would think a normal tree with appropriately built panels and gullet clearance could have a huge impact. Especially since those school house saddles are garbage and if I remember correctly very low profile up front.
Thanks all for the input. Sometimes putting my thoughts on the screen and hitting ‘send’ gets some of the kinks worked out. Keep the ideas coming!
My horse has kissing spine - 3 spaces touching and 2 close. Had the bone remodeling surgery with excellent results. The surgeon that did my horse does not believe saddle fit has a whole lot to do with KS but that a bad fitting saddle will piss off just about any horse.
Chiro will not do a thing. Acupuncture and injections will provide temporary pain relief but not a permanent solution. If this horse is to have any chance, this girl needs to ride him in a correct frame with the horse engaging his core. The PT course of action for KS is difficult and lifelong. The surgery is reasonable in price and can be a life saver. My horse would be standing in the pasture if it was not for the surgery. The injections and acupuncture were insufficient.
At the time my guy was diagnosed, the surgery was not an available option, so I went the injection route. I agree with Silverdog, the PT component is the biggest thing. He must work over the back with lots of stretching. The correct strong musculature and core engagement is more helpful than anything.
Kissing spine is not created by bad saddle fit, but is certainly aggravated by it. IME you need a PERFECTLY fitting saddle once you get to this juncture to allow the horse to be comfortable enough to develop the necessary support structure of muscle.
Avoid chiro. At best it is useless, at worst it can aggravate the issue. I was advised by the clinic to avoid chiro like the plague when my guy was diagnosed, so don’t waste the money.
If he is a surgical candidate, I agree it is your best (and cheapest in the long run) option. The injections are not cheap, and need to be done fairly frequently. Near the end of his riding career, my guy got them three times a year until the sites calcified. I retired him at 14.
Thank you all for the input. For those who opted for surgery, I assume it was the surgery where they shave down the spinal processes? Or was it the one that involved the ligaments? Sorry for the crap description; still learning about this disorder.
If working with a competent vet experienced in this, I agree that surgery would be the best route. The ball park price ranges I have seen are more than reasonable as far as I’m concerned, but you all know that one person’s “reasonable” is anothers “no way in hell”. I don’t know their financial situation. Although I think something must be done to attempt to get this horse sound again. The girl I think is considered somewhat high risk after losing her dad in an accident last year, and this horse was bought solely to give her something to focus on and bond with. I hope it doesnt HAVE to come to it, but I may outright offer to pay for his surgery.
Do yall know if any of this is possibly genetic? I own three maternal siblings; one is a broodmare, one is pending sale as a hunter prospect, the other is my primary show horse (my soulmate if you will).
There are also, apparently, quite a few kissing spine horses that are working asymptomatically. So the ditching of the rider might not be directly associated.
I think it’s tremendously undermining to one’s confidence to ride a horse that is possibly feeling pain, and even more so if at times one gets launched because of it. I’d have to know the kid, but I’d have great reservations having a kid go through that.
Our first pony was a free lease, top of the line, large saint of an Appendix who had been rehabbed from Kissing Spine. The family did some sort of treatment from a specialist in NY (if this is local for them let me know and I can try to find out what they did), he had about 6 months off and then re-started. They also went through h*ll finding a good saddle fit.
This was their heart horse, purchased for their daughter when she was 8 and they let us free lease him when she left for college. She had already moved on to a jumper and the pony’s custom Black Country saddle didn’t fit him any more (he was no longer as muscled up as he had been when she was eventing him).
We worked with a saddle fitter every 3-6 months to check the fit of the saddle my daughter rode him in (it was a Beval pony saddle with wool flocking, actually fit his less-muscled back quite nicely). It’s a small expense when you think of sparing the horse pain, layup time, medications/procedures etc.
He was a very good boy and is now teaching another small child to canter and jump. As a result of his condition the owners had asked that he not jump over 2’6", which was not a problem as my daughter was just starting cross rails. He was excellent in dressage and would frame up beautifully for a 9 year old, so I imagine the stretch felt quite nice to him.
FWIW he LOVED massages. No idea if it helped him therapeutically but he would literally start to yawn when the massage therapist walked into the barn lol.
Good luck and I hope it works out for this family and your former horse!
Sadly the girl was thrown on consecutive rides and is now scared to ride him. I now wonder if this was starting to progress when I was having a personality clash with him. We flat out didn’t click, but perhaps certain maneuvers bothered him to the point of throwing a fit about it; hated lead changes (ran through them) and I couldn’t get him straight to a fence to save myself. Had him evaluated (this is 3+ years ago now) and found nothing wrong with him. It was chalked up to him taking advantage of the fact that I was green over fences.
I don’t want this girl’s confidence to take any more hits. LIfe is too short to be scared of riding your horse. I’m calling around now to get some ideas on what surgery entails and how much. Would anyone mind sharing which surgery you had done and ball park range of cost? ( I know it will fluctuate based on how many vertabrae are invloved)
I’ll save the excruciating details. I had the horse looked at (my dime) and the KS is in fact in the T17 area. Without pulling up official diagnosis, I think it was 5 processes involved, with one over riding. I loaned them my butet to use as after a couple months off he became sound for light flat riding. They decided they don’t have the time for him and I ended up taking him back about a month ago I’ve ridden him a few times but haven’t had a whole lot of time (congress takes up all my time this time of year) but he still has a lovely trot and super cadences canter. I’ll leg him up and the local community college is interested in him for a seasonal lease situation. Or might see if I can lease him out as a walk trot horse; lead change is crap but would make a very competitive flat eq horse in the right situation. So, update is not great, but not horrible either. I’m not thrilled with another mouth to feed that won’t be contributing to the business, but glad I could at least take him back and he didn’t end up in a kill pen. Sound for flat riding, possibly jumping if he were to be injected. Once I get back from congress I’ll play around with him a bit more as weather permits.
It was very kind what you did, taking this horse back. Not many sellers are like that, OP.
Do you have the X-rays and how severe are we talking? Needing bone-shaving severe? Lig-snip severe? Or just “needs medical therapy” severe?
You know, as ominous as Kissing Spine diagnosis is, there’s a lot of treatment options out there that are not excruciatingly expensive. While I personally would not do the lig-snip (I don’t see a good enough % of horses return to prior level of work w/o secondary injuries), the bone-shaving surgery is very well regarded and it is not expensive as far as surgeries go. IIRC it runs about $2000-5000 depending on aftercare and any complications. I have a few friends with horses that have gotten the bone-shave and they’ve all been incredibly happy.
I have two vets: one is my lameness & emergency call vet and the other is my out of the box thinking vet - both I respect immensely and both bring a lot of knowledge to the table. Both of them said for my guy (who also has KS in the same area as your guy) that they think trying therapeutic approaches first (meso, SF, SW, robaxin, and controlled exercise) before injections first are the best way to go, and that the rads do not always correlate to pain. Interestingly, just about every vet I’ve talked to has said that horses with KS do best with lots of movement/turnout and that inertia is detrimental. With my own KS gelding I can definitely say he is much slower to limber up if he’s been standing in the run-in stall all day (IE when it rains).
As far as saddles… my gelding definitely prefers the Stubben New Tree platform. It made a huge difference in his way of going. Not sure if that helps, but I’ve seen huge improvement in my gelding as of late by combining mesotherapy and therapeutic stretches…
I read a study last week that said some of the best results of KS therapy came from a mixture of mesotherapy, saddle fit, and exercise. This is about the same with my experience with my gelding, but N=1 here. Someone posted it recently (as in last weekend) and I’ll see if I can dig it it up - it was on another KS themed thread.
I know you didn’t ask for advice on exercises, but I thought I’d share what has made a tremendous difference in my cold-backed, defensive KS horse:
I don’t care for Art2Ride at all, I find them really outrageous and gimmicky (a horse cannot work over his back if he is in pain, period and I dislike that many of them think exercise is the appropriate remedy to KS. it isn’t) – however, I have found a few exercises that have immensely helped my gelding, that I do every day, that definitely warms him up and makes him incredibly soft and supple – and I think the exercises are the reason why he has been going so brilliantly lately, personally – they are:
Before tack up, do carrot stretches:
Pull/stretch horse’s head to shoulder, hold 3 seconds. Repeat 3x.
Pull/stretch horse’s head to flank, hold 3 seconds. Repeat 3x
Pull/stretch horse’s head to hip, hold 3 seconds. Repeat 3x.
It’s worth noting that my gelding has the hardest time with his shoulder stretch, since it requires him to “lift” his shoulders and flex his neck much more than the hip or flank stretch does. These were hard for my gelding to do initially. He wants to cheat and collapse on his shoulder.
After tack-up - back up in a straight line, 10 feet. Repeat 2x. Gradually increase to 20ft, maintain straightness. I treat my gelding after backing up because I think in a past life someone used backing up as a punishment for him.
Before mounting: hand jog horse around the ring, 2 laps. Increase to 3 laps as your fitness/wind allows. I’ve found this to be the most helpful, it seems to allow the saddle to “settle” and the horse to move sans rider - that way you can eyeball how they are moving and if they are tight or loose that day.
These exercises seem like they take a lot of time, but they don’t. They only add about 3-5m to my tack up/warm up time.
Warming up once I am on, I work on 10m of leg yielding. Out of all of the exercises I’ve been told to do, the leg yields have helped the most in getting him to use his back. I leg yield to the wall, and out on a circle. I change bend often.
I also incorporated walk pole cavalettis into the leg yield - leg yield to the quarterline where poles are, leg yield after poles, etc. The poles are 6 in a row with four raised. I walk him over it every walk break.
The other thing I’ve done is the triangular leg yield while asking him to stretch down long and low - you walk in a straight line, push the hind leg out in an almost- turn-on-forehand, change direction, push hind out on that almost TOF again (make sure not to stop moving forward), and rinse/repeat.
The first 5m of trot, I work only on getting him long and low and reaching for the bit. No collection, think of working him like a 3 y/o – forward and out is most important.
I also have been keeping things short and simple - 5m of stretchy trot max before walk break over poles, 5m of leg yield @ walk before walk break - seriously breaking it down into small blocks of work followed by short intervals of mental break - and when I am walking him on his break it is a legitimate break - no contact, no leg yields, etc - just walking on the outside on a loose rein.
In as little as 3 weeks, I have seen absolutely tremendous progress using this regime. I’m kicking myself for not having the discipline to do this sooner. Two weeks ago we had the most quiet, serene canter I have ever gotten out of this horse. And IMHO it is all because I spend about 10-15m warming up at the walk, doing leg yields and (baby) shoulder-ins to help him get more supple before asking for the real work.
OP, that is very nice of you. I had a lengthy thread on rehabbing my short backed TB with KS. We did a lot of pricey, conservative treatment and brand new saddles by an awesome saddle fitter and he competes as an eventer 2 years later. It can be done depending on the severity (Vic was T-14/T-15 with bone remodeling).
Beowulf, thank you so much for the exercise ideas. I’ve done searching for exercises before with not much in regards to specific regimens. I don’t have access to his X-rays on my phone. And I have zero time at the moment as I’m at the QH congress for the next two weeks. Only have time when I’m in the line to longe… and it’s long this morning
so going off of memory, he has 5 vertabrae imvolved, some remodeling, one or two are overlapping. Not the worst overlap I’ve seen from googling, but still overlaps nonetheless. So I think shaving would be helpful since there is remodeling. When I took him back the first time (year and a half ago) he was still violently bucking. He was so tight in the lumbar area, the vet could not manipulate the area at all. His back was just locked. I took him home and threw him in a pasture for two months until I had the time to do something with him. Took him back to the same clinic, but different vet for an eval of his future. That vet could manipulate the lumbar area easily. All the tension was gone from his time in the pasture. The vet was skeptical that anything was even wrong, so I told him to pull X-rays and see. He was surprised at home bad it is, and that the horse was showing no pain.
That was april ish 2016. The family asked for him back shortly after that for a light trail horse. So that’s all he did for a year. Light riding, no jumping, but not legged up and in shape either. The one time I’ve ridden him since getting him back, he was slow and fairly supple. Needs to get in shape but no glaring tension or soreness.
Ill tet to leg him up this winter anf incorperate the exercises you mention. Maybe reevaluate in the spring as far as treatments? I agree surgery is the best bet. Just need to save for it and decide how far I want to try and take this horse. He was actually much more agreeable than three years ago, last time I jumped him. If I can get him happy enough to get his lead change finished, I’ll have a really good chance of finding him a lesson or show home that will keep him in shape and get him off my feed bill.
In regards to taking him back, I feel that to an extent we have the responsibility to look after them even after we sell them, if possible. Obviously it’s not always possible to offer a bit back option. But if someone is willing to give the horse away, I’d rather he stand in my pasture and eat hay, than end up in a kill pen. Just hope for his sake I can find someone who will give him a job.
I’ve ridden him a few times but haven’t had a whole lot of time (congress takes up all my time this time of year) but he still has a lovely trot and super cadences canter. I’ll leg him up and the local community college is interested in him for a seasonal lease situation. Or might see if I can lease him out as a walk trot horse; lead change is crap but would make a very competitive flat eq horse in the right situation. So, update is not great, but not horrible either. I’m not thrilled with another mouth to feed that won’t be contributing to the business, but glad I could at least take him back and he didn’t end up in a kill pen. Sound for flat riding, possibly jumping if he were to be injected. Once I get back from congress I’ll play around with him a bit more as weather permits.
