Quick opinions: older horse losing range of motion in shoulders and knees #21 NEW update on 3/8 vet visit

[quietann]

So… the big visit to my old vet was yesterday.

The short version is: SI injections, different shoes and a different trim are needed, try that before getting into neck etc. injections, try to get her using her back more when riding, she looks great for her age.

Long version: The mare has had SI injections in the past as it’s a weak area; her hindlegs are very straight. It hadn’t been done since just before I moved her in 2017. As long as I am riding her, I may be trailering her to this vet yearly as he is set up to do it; all previous times were at her boarding barn, but it requires portable ultrasound and considerable assistance. So we did that yesterday.

Hooves: she has good hooves but the legs above them are wonky. This causes her to weight the medial side (inside of the hoof) and those areas are not in great shape, pretty jammed down. So a more corrective type shoeing might help. (And take back those toes!) It’s easy for her hooves to “get away from” the farrier over time; they might do a really good trim based on X-rays, but then over the following months, the hooves grow out to a worse shape. The vet and my farrier have chatted, and the farrier is ordering the recommended shoes for the mare.

(The above is one of those things that I see, but for some reason even really good vets and farriers in the area of the barn keep missing it or dismissing it.)

The vet wants to get her hooves right before, and hopefully in lieu of, doing a lot of intervention/injections. He said acupuncture would also help.

He says that the “mad trot” is a sign of pain.

I need to get the saddle reflocked, but otherwise it fits well. I rode her for the vet, without much warm-up, so it was really awkward. He really wants her using her back more, which, ouch. We didn’t talk about it, but I’m wondering about trying an Equiband system for her. I am not super skilled enough to really keep her using her back… and it’s not something I think about much on the trail. He suggested using a bridle with a bit instead of the hackamore for this; I do have her old bridle with a double-jointed eggbutt snaffle, which I was using occasionally last fall. She chomps on that bit (which she didn’t do when I was riding her with it consistently), so I am thinking… different bit, or will she get used to it? Advice would be appreciated.

(There will be more to follow about the travel and visit, but I have a work meeting in 10 minutes.)

[quietann]

Part 2: So… the mare self-loads, most of the time, and yesterday she was fabulous. She nearly trotted onto the trailer (and yes, there was something yummy in there for her, and she knew it.) She was nervous at first at the vet clinic, until we got her inside and into a stall. We did the exam, and then I got sent into the waiting room while they did the SI injections, though I was able to check a couple of times to see how it was going. (And, by being in the waiting room, I got taken over by the practice cat.)

I forgot to say, no steroids in the injection. The vet drew blood and did something like PRP instead.

When her sedation wore off, she loaded fine to go home, was fine when I stopped at home to pick up DH, got her back to the barn and in her stall, and she still seemed fine. She was eating and looked good.

And of course 45 minutes later, she wasn’t OK (because horses). She was really tired, and eating but not attacking her hay, and the Poop Fairy hadn’t visited. The barn trainer was there and said she’d keep an eye on her. DH and I went off for an hour, came back, and she seemed a little worse, but had gut sounds. Because the trainer was still there, I took DH home, had dinner, and came back with the truck in case she needed to be taken to a clinic, expecting to give her banamine at the least, and found a completely normal mare, with plenty of poop, quite happily munching hay. I later found out that she had pooped after I put her in her stall, but a barn worker had picked her stall before he left for the day, and that she had gobbled her dinner as usual. The barn manager reported that she was 100% fine this morning and the Poop Fairy had visited many times. She is in for today, and gets turned out as usual tomorrow.

No doubt it was a stressful day for her; she is an old lady mare and has a history of ulcers (and of course I’d forgotten to give her Ulcergard in the morning.) The only long trailer rides she’s had in the past few years were to a place in Maine where after unloading, she’d go straight into a nice paddock with a shed, not a stall, so she could stretch her legs. And it’s been almost a year and a half since we last went there. (Honest opinion: there are not enough paddocks with sheds available to boarders in my area.)