Weighing the options for my horse. Looking for long term results of kissing spine shave surgery 2+ years out. Candid answers please. My horse is young, big, powerful, athletic = dangerous in pain. Has already thrown the trainer. Recommendations so far are euthanasia, pasture ornament, or surgery. Is it worth it to put the horse through surgery? Worried about the facet arthropathy that DSP shave doesn’t address. Just looking to see if anyone has long term results to share. Thank you.
My then 10-year-old had mild KS - he wasn’t dangerous in any way or typically symptomatic, but it was creating issues for him. We injected him twice (along with correct riding and physical therapy) and then the injections quit working. He had his surgery in 2017 and it has been amazing. The recovery time was about 2 1/2 months with daily handwalking and he came back to work pretty easily. I’d say he had some pain for the surgery for a couple of days, but was rearing to go after that. I’d do it again in a heartbeat, just for the fact that it’s been so nice not to worry if he’s in pain or having a bad day.
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Hard to say without specifics on exact location and severity. Since he’s so young, continuing growth might affect things too…are there any studies on that surgery on young, still growing horses?
The cases I’m familiar with (admittedly a small sample size and fairly severe with 3-5 areas of remodeling) have not had favorable long term outcomes. As with anything, location and extent likely matter a great deal.
A common issue seems to be that there are comorbid conditions (NPA, hocks, neck/neuro, to name a few) that remain and progress even after the KS is surgically “fixed.”
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Listen to the NOËLLE Floyd equestrian voices podcast about it. They have a vet on that has done a lot of research and been involved in studies with high sample sizes. She suggested the success rate is quite high. She’s at the university of Pennsylvania.
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I would join the Horses With Kissing Spine group on FB and ask there. You will get a broader audience and better responses. It really seems to be a mixed bag. Some people have success and some don’t.
Just keep in mind that people have varying ideas of what constitutes as “sound”. You may not agree with others on what is truly sound or lame, so see if those responses come with videos backing their statement up. My opinion is most of the success stories shared in these spaces barely constitute as “servicably sound”.
That being said, horses are not cheap and I am a proponent for “servicably sound” in the right situation.
I have a friend who just put down her KS horse who had the bone shave surgery. I hope she chimes in here. He was not a success story despite having the literal best care in the country – from the surgery (done by the leading surgeon for this procedure), outpatient, and rehab. She did a necropsy and when I saw the photos of how badly damaged the processes and surrounding fascia were despite years since the surgery, it really made my stomach twist for this horse. It gave me a whole new perspective on how generous horses are despite pain.
As with everything the location, severity, and management really matter. Do you know what area is affected and how many processes?
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I concur. I have a severe kissing spine horse - as his owner I can tell when it’s bothering him out in the pasture, and a really good lameness vet can too. However, the vast majority of people in my life see a “sound” horse. Even when he was going under saddle, the signs were there that he wasn’t sound (presenting as attitude, stifle issues, and worse quality movement overall), but again I had to argue with the local vet that the horse was lame.
I see this in that group as well as most kissing spine groups. People who rave about a now-sound horse that I PERSONALLY think is quite unsound, but hasn’t yet reached the breaking point. I am very sure that there are horses out there who HAVE been fixed by the surgery! I just take any story (good or bad) with a grain of salt.
That said, I would also like to hear more long term stories! I think there are probably two populations of symptomatic horses - one where the KS is the only issue and surgery fixes it, and one where the KS is secondary to many other problems. What doesn’t help is that improper management and handling can exacerbate KS, and tip a horse from group A to group B very easily.
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Yes!! This is not talked about often enough in these spaces. The management plays a fundamental role in the success story. That’s not to blame Ammy B for failure when her horse isn’t miraculously cured, but there are considerations to take into play about how to manage – both in turnout, therapy, shoeing, and riding – a KS horse that is so very rarely discussed. These horses IMO need to be micromanaged on a level most people are not prepared for.
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I would strongly recommend listening to this podcast (kissing spine stuff starts around 14 min mark). I have a horse with KS and have been using interventions like mesotherapy, shockwave, and coupled with physical therapy and targeted exercises, he is doing amazingly well. https://horsesinthemorning.com/kissing-spine-body-lameness-and-weird-news-for-november-29-2023-by-werm-flooring/
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Spine stuff can be so difficult. Even with people, the level of pain can vary so greatly and not necessarily correlate to the imaging. I think (well, I know, just not from KS specifically but other axial skeletal problems) that a young horse who is to the point of dangerous is not going to be a stoic horse even if he gets to a place where another horse would be serviceably sound. Success for that kind of horse has to be recovery well above average if your goal is a riding horse. You can’t judge his case against all others who had the surgery.
It’s more like maybe neck surgery…that typically has a result of improving the horse’s neuro scale by one. So a horse who is 4/5 neuro before surgery is going to be pretty neuro after, at best. And that would be a success, technically. Even if he appears to be a good candidate for the surgery, is the expected outcome going to have a significant impact on his pain level given his tolerances? You don’t know until you try I suppose. But I would think with extreme bad behavior to start that the prognosis would be more guarded.
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