Can anyone advise me the cost approximately of kissings spine surgery … both types please (snipping and bone surgery)
and recovery success
Just did this with my mare, spinous process snipping. Cost was $5400 for the surgery and hospital stay in New England, then 2 vet visits to remove the staples for another $350 or so. Her recovery success is unknown as this type of surgery has a 6 month recovery. I expect to lunge her a bit in December and then restart her slowly next spring. I will say, my mare seems much more comfortable in her body and has been doing cat stretches recently, which I hadn’t seen her do in years. I have hope.
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Did spinous process surgery on my horse in April - cost for the surgery and couple of days immediately following was under $2,000 (standing surgery performed at my vet’s clinic). I did leave him with my vet for the 3 month recovery (2 weeks handgrazing, 2 weeks marching handwalks, 1 month turnout, one month lunging in the Pessoa rig) just because it was easier given my travel schedule and the cost of doing so wasn’t much more than my regular board. At the end of the 3 months he came home and went back to work. We’ll start jumping again in the next couple of weeks, but he’s felt very good on the flat.
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I just had the ligament snip procedure done a couple of weeks ago. I also had my horse’s SI injected while he was at the clinic. I spent less than $2k total. Although I also purchased Gastrogard for his time on stall rest, so that adds a good bit to my expenditure.
Obviously, I can’t comment on the success of the procedure yet. My horse has two more weeks of hand walking, then he’ll start light lunging in a Pessoa rig. Fingers crossed - I have heard lots of positive stories. I opted for the standing procedure because my horse is aged and not a high-performance horse. If he were younger and I were hoping to compete at a higher level, I think I likely would have gone with the more intensive procedure.
Do your research and if you can, join the many FB pages that are dedicated to horses with KS.
It’s been my experience that there is a low long term success for the lig-snip. Horses tend to be fine for 1-2 years post op and then tend to need to be retired because of secondary issues - suspensory injuries being the most common. The one that is still competing soundly five years down the road appears to be an outlier.
My vet will not recommend the lig-snip procedure because he believes there is not enough long term information gathered to prove it is successful once the horse is back in work. I started several similar topics on the FB groups and the overwhelming response was the lig-snip gave 1-2 years of solid riding and then the horse needed to be retired.
It would be interesting if there was some sort of study on the wastage of horses post lig-snip surgery. I think that it may be that the rehabilitation (requiring lots of lunging work) and the management (requiring lots of stall time) may be detrimental to long term soundness.
There are a few studies that shows that mild to moderate KS can be managed quite well (with limited wastage, as compared to lig-snip) with shockwave, proper saddle fit, mesotherapy and full turnout.
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Good points, Beowulf. It would be something to research. My vet (also a surgeon) prefers the bone shaving procedure. I asked about stability with the ligament procedure, and he said would have concerns for long-term high performance. I should have thought to add that. In my horse’s case, I am hoping we can enjoy a couple of pain-free years together doing low-level flatwork, some low jumps, and lots of trail riding before my horse is ready to retire. My vet said stability would not be an issue in retirement. I also live in an area where we have virtually no turnout (coming from the mid Atlantic, I do not consider an hour or two in a sun pen “turnout”). That said, a sport horse vet in the mid Atlantic with whom I consulted has been seeing lots of success with the procedure, and I’m sure her clients’ horses do get turnout. She also feels that often if the procedure is not successful, it is because KS was not the cause of that horse’s issues, but rather an incidental finding. As with any newer procedure, time will tell.
As an aside, my horse had mild to moderate KS. But injection, regular shockwave (at $550 per session), a new saddle, Equioxx, Robaxin, and acupuncture failed to manage it. I do suspect that if he had lots of turnout, it might have been ok. But that’s just not an option where I live. So that may or may not be something to which the op has access.
My Ligament snip was $1200 all-in, including an overnight stay.
We did the bone shaving just over 2 years ago. Total cost for surgery, three day stay, and follow up visits was around $3700. Fabulous, fabulous recovery and he’s working so much better than he was ever capable of before.
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