Neck Arthritis? SI? Other? No Of The Above?

[Fence.Hopper]

Have a horse that is newer to me (purchased about 6 months ago), but knew the horse from the local circuit prior to that and know the trainer/ barn it came from. Horse is doing well but some things have come up that I am having gut feeling could be something and wanted to bounce my thoughts off a sounding board while my vet is on vacation. Horse is in late teens with clean flexions by sports medicine vet in January this year.

Potential Symptom List

• Stopping at jumps - this is not a frequent thing, and has only happened at shows. I know the horse did this with its previous owner at shows, again only occasionally. Could be a physical symptom or behavioral (“I’m not jumping because you didn’t ride well enough”).
• Missing lead changes. Horse has an auto change, and gets it roughly 70% of the time. Doesn’t seem to struggle with one change more than the other.
• Stands close together behind. Horse is big bodied and wide, so I don’t think it is conformational but could be.
• Trips in front occasionally when hacking out on fairly smooth/ flat terrain. Trips are at trot only.
• Asking for collection/ a higher frame causes the horse to get tense. Not sure if mental or physical response (or both).
• Horse has a history of “hopping” when jumping, particularly at shows. This hasn’t been much of an issue with me but has happened once or twice.
• Horse is very stiff in lateral flexion of the neck. Seems to have improved some by working on developing a softer mouth but still obviously stiff.
• Wither hollows/ weaker topline than one would expect for level of work.
• Rushes jumps, preferring to leave long than deep.
• Jumps a bit like a deer. I’ve seen videos of the horse going around when it was younger (8-10) and it had a lovely round jump. Could be from AA riding/ ownership since then.
• Tight behind (snatching leg toward midline) when being trimmed behind.
• Feels like a loose stifle sometimes (stepped in a hole feeling).

Many things could be attributed to a life of being an AA horse (in varying levels of training, mostly just semi-regular lessons not training) after being brought along by BNT, but something in my gut says that horse isn’t improving as much as could be expected for all of it to be poor riding. According to previous owner, horse has had hocks done once and that was about 2 years ago (a few months into their ownership).

[Old_Mac_Donald]

Honestly, get Xrays done of C6-C7.

[fivestrideline]

I have a horse that sounds like this. Almost exactly.
Tripping, issues with forward (hopping/jumping), standing close/toward midline more than makes sense for conformation, lateral flexion is hard, extreme degradation of way of going vs when he was young (I’m the only owner since he was 3, all issues are mine but I’m not a beginner).

Here’s a list of his known issues:

• kissing spine
• NPA, improving with new farrier
• front suspensory injury
• SI issues, working on imaging. Issues based on palpitations, back is bad but SI is WORSE
• suspected neck issues, will be imaged when I get him looked at for the SI
• negative for Lyme, haven’t tested for EPM but that’s a possibility

IIWM, I’d get a good bodyworker’s report and then go ahead and take your horse to a clinic or vet school for a lameness exam. Neck and SI would be my suspicions, but image those feet if you haven’t. I suspect my horse has a lot of potential to have problems but that his feet triggered everything falling apart. He’s pretty well put together and well bred, for his breed (OTTB).

Edited to add: except for the suspensory, he was never “lame”, exactly. I just KNEW something was wrong, as I’ve had him so long I know what he “used to be”, and his attitude/willingness was changing for the worse.

[zany1]

I second this. The malformation there can cause a lot of these weirder symptoms

[Fence.Hopper]

Thanks all. Good to know it at least isn’t “just horse things” or all in my head. Forgot to add that horse was palpated all along spine and hips and SI flexed when the flexions were done with no notable reactions. Actually, vet said low back mobility was good for the age. I’ve also had a good body worker see the horse twice - once right after I moved it home and body worker’s comments were that the horse was tight and tense all over but by second visit (8ish weeks later) much of the tension was gone and body worker didn’t see the need to come back based on the improvement. Still the above issues persist.

[IPEsq]

I would just image the entire spine and SIs. It’s not that expensive (trust me, done it a few times!). Some symptoms sound like SI, some neck, some back. I would hesitate to look one place only because if you find something, you might think, ok that’s it. But there could be more than one thing, needing to be managed together.

Did you do imaging of the legs or feet in January or just flexions?

[Jump314]

Late teens, poor topline, and loss of performance make me think of Cushings. I would get an ACTH test.

[kaya842]

I was going to say that too. Just got a positive test back on a horse that doesn’t have the typical yak coat or huge fat pockets but DOES have muscle atrophy on her topline and is in the same age group.

[joiedevie99]

I’d start with pulling blood - Vitamin E, Metabolic panel for Cushings, Lyme, EPM. Then move on to x-rays.

[victoriakent]

Has the horse seen a chiro? Has it ever had hock or stifle injections done?

[cnd8]

Hocks 2 years ago, which to me, would make me suspect they’d need to be done again. I know I can only usually get one year out of a set of IA injections.

[Fence.Hopper]

Hocks done two years ago. The body worker the horse has seen twice in my care does chiro/ graston/ cupping/ accupressure/ laser/ soft tissue work.

@cnd8 Agreed re usually only getting 1 year, however the horse flexed clean in Jan and when I pressed the vet specifically about doing the hocks they said they didn’t think it would be of any use based on flexions and that if I wanted to do something, they’d suggest Legend/ Pentosan/ Adequan. Horse was started on Pentosan with not much, if any, change.

[atr]

I’d be looking at C6/C7 to start with, myself. These all sound like classic symptoms of a horse with an ouchy neck.

Incorrectly ridden horses can end up with some arthritis in the neck which can be relieved with IA injections and maintained with good riding once the inflammation is under control.

And it’s an easy enough thing to check (can be accessed with a portable x-ray machine) and cross happily off the list if it’s all OK!

[beau159]

@Fence.Hopper

Have a horse that is newer to me (purchased about 6 months ago), but knew the horse from the local circuit prior to that and know the trainer/ barn it came from. Horse is doing well but some things have come up that I am having gut feeling could be something and wanted to bounce my thoughts off a sounding board while my vet is on vacation. Horse is in late teens with clean flexions by sports medicine vet in January this year.

Potential Symptom List

• Stopping at jumps - this is not a frequent thing, and has only happened at shows. I know the horse did this with its previous owner at shows, again only occasionally. Could be a physical symptom or behavioral (“I’m not jumping because you didn’t ride well enough”).
• Missing lead changes. Horse has an auto change, and gets it roughly 70% of the time. Doesn’t seem to struggle with one change more than the other.
• Stands close together behind. Horse is big bodied and wide, so I don’t think it is conformational but could be.
• Trips in front occasionally when hacking out on fairly smooth/ flat terrain. Trips are at trot only.
• Asking for collection/ a higher frame causes the horse to get tense. Not sure if mental or physical response (or both).
• Horse has a history of “hopping” when jumping, particularly at shows. This hasn’t been much of an issue with me but has happened once or twice.
• Horse is very stiff in lateral flexion of the neck. Seems to have improved some by working on developing a softer mouth but still obviously stiff.
• Wither hollows/ weaker topline than one would expect for level of work.
• Rushes jumps, preferring to leave long than deep.
• Jumps a bit like a deer. I’ve seen videos of the horse going around when it was younger (8-10) and it had a lovely round jump. Could be from AA riding/ ownership since then.
• Tight behind (snatching leg toward midline) when being trimmed behind.
• Feels like a loose stifle sometimes (stepped in a hole feeling).

Many things could be attributed to a life of being an AA horse (in varying levels of training, mostly just semi-regular lessons not training) after being brought along by BNT, but something in my gut says that horse isn’t improving as much as could be expected for all of it to be poor riding. According to previous owner, horse has had hocks done once and that was about 2 years ago (a few months into their ownership).

Ditto to getting xrays of the neck and back. The stiff neck and tripping symptoms are alarming to me. Those were the main symptoms for my horse, and we ended up figuring out that he was born with crooked vertebrae in his neck that were likely compressing on his spinal cord. (devastating diagnosis for sure) He had many flexions, regular vet visits, chiro, etc throughout the course of his life for regular care. He was 10 years old when we made this diagnosis. So he went all those years undetected and without problems. So just because “he flexed clean” in January, might not mean anything at all.

So I’m probably more paranoid than most, but I would check out that neck and back and have someone VERY QUALIFIED interpret the xrays. Most vets are not comfortable with neck issues.

[ladipus]

@Fence.Hopper I would have him evaluated by a neurologist…definitely X-ray the neck and pursue from there

[Lunabear1988]

OP, any updates on your horse? Wishing the best for you guys

[Fence.Hopper]

No update yet. Our vet ended up going out on maternity leave early as her baby came early (everyone is happy and healthy!) so no vet work has been done yet. Horse is currently just sitting.

[Fence.Hopper]

Finally have an update - vet was out Monday. Did a thorough eval and got no response/ reaction in the SI, but agreed horse was not 100% comfortable. After neck flexions/ palpation and listening to a description of the behaviors/ symptoms, vet agreed neck injury was a likely culprit along with hocks needing done. We injected hocks (it was likely just time as they hadn’t been done in 3? years) and decided to start with shockwave on the neck. If we like the results on that, we will do another round or two. If we don’t feel like it helped much, we are going to inject. I asked about radiographs - vet’s thoughts were that they could see any potential damage/ issues better under US which they would use for injections anyway so we skipped on rads for now. Vet is coming back in two weeks for a follow up, either injections or another round of shockwave.

I’ve never had shockwave done before but know of other who have had good results. Any one able to advise roughly how long it would take to notice a benefit, if we are going to see one?

[IPEsq]

You should notice a pretty immediate effect from shockwave if there’s going to be one. The question would be how long it lasts compared to the price of repeat treatments. I have not found it to be helpful for necks, unfortunately.

[Peggy]

Shockwave has a temporary analgesic effect in addition to any longer-term benefits so you should see some improvement almost right away. The question is how long it will last.