My 25-yr-old draft cross was diagnosed with ringbone a year or so ago. Prior to that he had been a reliable trail horse for several years. He seems to go through times when he’s not as ouchy, but right now he appears particularly painful when he turns (as away from the fence to come to the gate for the walk back to the barn)…He’s on 2 scoops of Bute a day, plus Equioxx. My vet does not want me to increase his Bute. He appears to be “pasture sound”, gets up from naps & rolls with ease. I guess I just want to be sure he’s as comfortable as possible. How have you managed this condition?
Equioxx. Much as he needs. You can combine it with the Bute if your vet suggests, long term side effects are less of an issue with seniors in considerable pain from chronic arthritic conditions. Think he’s probably past help from any supplements with confirmed, likely advancing, ringbone.
Realize also this is not going to improve, particularly in cold weather. If/ when he starts having issues getting up and down, you’ll have some decisions to make. If he can’t continue without daily help from pain killers, you might also give that some thought.
Our story is not encouraging.
One of our horses was diagnosed with ringbone on one foot.
According to x-rays and our vets interpretation, he may have at some time injured his foot and now, years later, it settled into ringbone.
He was 14 then, so retired to pasture and on Bute.
That was before any other such medications.
After the first year, we had to go up to two grams a day, eventually that was not keeping him comfortable,
We didn’t know about ulcers then, but he started cribbing, badly.
We thought from the ringbone pain, but ulcers probably contributed to that.
The last months all he did is stand over the water tank, didn’t hardly felt like walking around the pens, much less go out to pasture with the others.
We asked our vet if it was time.
Vet looked at him and said he looks too good, give it some more time.
Several months later, horse was starting to look drawn, clearly was not doing that well, either laying down or standing there cribbing so we asked vet to look at him again.
Vet then said yes, is time now, maybe we should have done something sooner.:dead:
That is the only time we didn’t insist a vet reconsider when that question came up.
Now we are firmly believers that any time too soon is better for some/most horses than a minute too late.
Too bad we had to learn that at a cost of a less than acceptable quality of life at the end for one of the nicest, sweetest horses ever.
I have since heard similar stories about horses with ringbone.
Seems to be the kind of lameness where horses endure better than most, but also can slip on us how bad they are faring.
When there, double and triple guess yourself all along caring for your horse with ringbone.
With some kinds of lameness, it is not easy, while in the moment, to know how bad they are feeling.
Then, ringbone has many presentations, from horses where the ankle fuses and they have barely a limp to those that can’t hardly move.
It depends on how each horse responds where we have to go with giving them whatever relief that one horse needs.
If you’ve got the finances, shockwave can help! We have a mare with ringbone that was lame – she got shockwave and she doesn’t need any bute or equioxx. She is sound and they do keep her in regular light flat work though. That also seems to help.
Thank you! I will investigate that…I would be ecstatic if I could even just tack walk him, and so would he!
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Make sure your shoeing/trimming is on point as well! You want a foot that’s well balanced all around with the toe breakover pulled well back to reduce stress on the coffin joint in particular.
