On Monday (7/2) evening I went to pull my horse from his stall (he’s been on hand walk and turn out only the last week due to getting his neck injected) and when he came out he looked like he was walking on egg shells. I brought him to the front of the barn to have someone else look and by the time he walked the 30 seconds, he was almost normal. To someone who doesn’t know him well, he looked normal, but I could tell he was still slightly short strided and not moving freely through his shoulders.
We brought him to the clinic and initial blood work came back clear, he wasn’t dehydrated (despite the heat) and his feet were tight and cold and non-reactive to hoof testers. They’re still keeping an eye out for laminitis, but it doesn’t appears to be that.
My vet saw him Tuesday AM and saw what I did (the egg shell walk) and again, he quickly worked out of it. We had another vet acupuncture him late Tuesday and he presented as extremely sore in his Trapezius. He gets weekly acupuncture from another vet and he’s sore usually in his poll and sometimes SI, but never in the Trapezius muscle. The next course of action is they started him on bute to see if he did in fact somehow pull the muscle.
He does have arthritis in his C5-C7 and received neck injections in December (2017) and January (2018) and went in for round 3 on 6/28/18. Even with the issues he has NEVER looked the way he did on Monday. Between the end of May and up to 6/25 he had been ridden 6-7 days a week w/t/c and ground poles and was doing amazing. He also finished a loading dose of Adequan at the end of May and started monthly injections at the tail end of June.
In turnout he rarely will roll and NEVER runs or even trots. He just stands around and looks sad until you bring him in. He will lie down at night in his stall, but rarely, if ever lies down during the day. Everyone who saw him Monday (pre 7pm) said he “looked normal”, so I am just plain stumped.
My question for you all is, have you ever experienced a horse with a pulled/sore Trapezius that is from something OTHER than saddle fit? I know it’s not my saddle as he was last ridden on 6/25 and was fine until 7/2.
My vet did just call and said he looks better today and the bute seems to be helping, so that’s good news! Hopefully it really is just a pulled muscle and the anti-inflammatory is helping.
He could have pulled it rolling or getting up or down. Horses do that. I’d listen to your vet and give him some off time. Sounds like controlled movement is helpful so hand walking is your friend until he comes out of the stall in better shape.
Yes, hand walking has become our best friend! He’s getting hand walked about 6 times a day (if not more) at the clinic and I go in the evening after work to do it once more. He looked normal both Wednesday and Thursday evening, no egg shell walk (hooray!), so I’m optimistically hopeful it really is something more minor.
It’s been one thing after another since October and it seems every time we start getting him in a good spot, something else happens.
I have never encountered a pulled Trapezius before, so between is neck arthritis and EPM, my heart dropped in my butt when I saw him come out like that Monday. It never even occurred to me that he could’ve have done something simple like pull a muscle! My mind immediately went to worst case scenario
Whether or not its from the saddle might not be relevant; you can have a saddle fit on paper, but cause extreme trauma to the horse. Ask me how I know, I had to deal with SI complications after
Never rolling, never running or trotting… rarely lying down in stall, these are all symptoms of a horse with chronic back pain. I think a horse that never runs or moves about in his paddock is probably very sore, I would be very concerned about that.
Most horses I know have at least one nap a day, usually at a routine time, and a horse you never see lie down is troubling to me.
Combine the CA with EPM and I think your culprit is something in his back. Can you do a round of robaxin, and keep him out as much as possible? I would be giving him a few weeks off at minimum.
IME, if you have arthritis in the neck, you are going to be dealing with secondary issues and a common one is back-pain & hock pain.
The soreness in the neck might be secondary; IME the neck is one of the biggest compensatory areas when somewhere else is affected - they use their neck to stabilize their body when loading the lame limb, and they can get sore from that.
Walking on egg-shells can be a sign also of neurological issues… your vet didn’t think he was neurologic? With the other two neurologic things compromising him (EPM, CA), I think it would be Occam’s Razor to assume whatever is bothering him is likely from something you already know about.
Thank you for the insight on the back/hocks - it does make sense! I can definitely inquire about the Robaxin to see if it’s something we can start him on. I know we have the generic oral version (Methocarbamo)l at the barn - would that have the same benefits as injecting Robaxin? I think I know my answer as they’re not likely going to eat all of an oral supplement whereas the injection is guaranteed but hey, no question is stupid, right? LOL
Also, I apologize in advance for the lengthy response below!!
Based on all the testing we have done, he is not neurological. We’ve been testing his neurological soundness since October 2017 and are working with a vet whose specialty is neurological deficits and disorders and he has cleared him. We’re very hyper aware of possible neurological issues and make sure to keep this at the forefront because it’s not something we want to be unsure of.
With the EPM his initial titer from October was so inflated we didn’t pull a spinal tap (it came back at 2,560), just pre-emptively started treating with Marquis and EPM Paste. After he finished this course (11/23) we did re-pull blood work AND a spinal tap. New titer came back at under 125 and the spinal tap was clear. The reason they initially treated for EPM was that he basically “sat down” out of the blue. He was waiting to be hose, front legs locked, hind legs crossed and he slowly sat down and then layed on his side. My vets also did x-rays of his neck and found arthritis in the C5 - C7 vertebrae,
In about 2-4 weeks the clinic will be trained on their new CT machine and will be able to scan necks (they’re already trained and running scans on heads). We’ll bring him in for a scan when they’re up and running to get a better overall picture since x-rays and ultrasounds only show so much.
We were actually going to do his hocks in the next month (waiting for the neck injections to settle) because when I did a PPE on him in 2017 he flexed a -1 in his left hock and at some point would be a candidate. Other than that, his PPE came back squeaky clean (he was also 17 at the time of the PPE and my vet even commented that if she didn’t know his age upfront he acted and looked much younger).
He does get weekly acupuncture and monthly PEMF treatments and they work on his back (as well as poll, neck, SI, hocks, etc) and his back is always okay - even when they palpate he never shows issues (i.e. dipping away when they reach that area).
For the turnout issue (I re-read my initial post and realize I should have added some color). He will occasionally roll and he will walk around but mostly stands due to the fact that he really despises being turned out. We also don’t have grass turnout and the paddocks are relatively small so he’ll eat hay that we provide and walk back and forth but especially given how hot it’s been, he prefers to stand in the shade. He does still get turned out everyday but just really hates it. If the outdoor rings are free we’ll turn him out there and then he is much more motivated to roll and trot. I think a lot of it has to do with space (lack there of in turnout) and right now the oppressive heat. At the clinic they’ve been turning him out daily in their indoor and he’s rolled and walks around (good sign I hope!)
In terms of lying down in his stall, I am not at the barn until 7pm most nights, so he very well could lie down in the middle of the day and I’m not catching it. I’m just guessing he’ll rarely lie down in the day time due to his inquisitive nature and from 8:00am - 5:00pm the barn is pretty busy and he’d much rather hang his head over the door and people watch/beg for treats versus lying down. I do know that he lies down at night because I find poop/urine on him in places that would only happen if he was lying down.
Thanks for the clarification - it does sound like he is in good hands and if the vets confidently ruled out neurological, its onto the next culprit… which is… feet.
How are his feet? Does he have a bullnose profile behind, long underrun heels, any of that? Is he shod?
Yes, Robaxin is methocarbamol; I have never injected it, I have always fed it orally with good results.
Yes, he is shod in steel all the way around - no front pads at this time as we’re letting his feet breathe and he’s done well the last few shoeings without front pads.
He gets done every 5 weeks or so and overall has good feet (a little soft at times - typical of white legged horses so I’m told). He’s a touch over due now because he was supposed to get done this week, but held off since he’s at the clinic still.
The only abnormality that we have noted is that his left front is slightly smaller than the others, but does not seem to impact him negatively. Note sure how well you can see his feet, but this is probably the best photo I have at the moment of all 4. He also is a tiny bit lopsided (right side his bigger than his left) - mostly in the barrel.
We haven’t totally ruled out laminitis, he’s currently about 1,450 pounds and stands 17hh - but since laminitis traditionally gets worse and not better, his feet are still tight and cold, there’s no pulse and he’s not reactive to daily hoof testing, they’ve put this diagnosis on the back burner.
We WILL be starting him on a diet though since his caloric intake is far surpassing what he’s burning on a daily basis and while he was in work, he still wasn’t burning enough to warrant what he’s being fed.
We also have him on Natural Vitamin E, joint supplement via Smartpak, Probios, Adequan (finished the loading dose in May) and now gets 1x monthly shots and I had just ordered Legend as well.
Hopefully this was just a fluke and it just came at a time where we’re all on high alert with him. We do have an exceptional team working with him which does put my mind somewhat at ease.
