Stifle OCD in baby :(

[jennywho]

To start off I’m embarrassed, worried and mainly sad that ive let this filly down. In all my years of breeding and raising tbs to my knowledge I’ve not had an OCD issue until now.

I noticed Saturday that one of my fillies wasn’t tracking evenly behind, not off just short stepping a bit and had planned to put up a small pen on Sunday to confine her for a bit. Arrived to feed Sunday am and she was down and unable to get up. My heart broke, I love this filly, she is all attitude, but loves people. Three hours after vet arrived we finally got her up. She wasnt nearly as lame as expected, not much worse than sat. Got her in the stall and vet came out again yesterday. We took radiographs of her stifle and found a large ocd.

I am waiting on a surgical consult from WSU and in the meantime have her on equioxx, OCD pellets and gave her a shot of adequan today.

Anyone else been through this and want to share the good, bad and ugly? Filly will be a year in April. I did search the COTH threads but most of them dealt with older horses.

Filly is confined to a stall. She was more lame today before starting equioxx and had some swelling in the stifle area.

Sigh.

[Laurierace]

They are almost always bilateral which is the bad news, the good news is they are almost 100% surgically corrected. Jingles yours is in the good news group.

[Slewdledo]

I am so sorry. Sending big jingles your way that it is fixable.

We had one who presented much the same (2011 colt, he was a little off behind, swelled up in both stifles, so went in for X-rays at EMD.) Dr. S. advised confinement, put him on a strict diet of grass hay ONLY, and Adequan, and reevaluate in 2 months. We also put him on OCD pellets. 6 weeks later vet came out to check again (after he had trouble getting up. Once he GOT up, he was okay, but it was the getting up that was so tricky.) X-rays showed that it was actually worse. He went to WSU for surgery and they had never seen a worse case of OCD and he was put down.

So there’s your worst case. We searched and searched for a cause - sire and dam have not produced horses with OCD, feeding regimen is no different than the past umpteen years, although the mare was boarded (for her last trimester) and foaled elsewhere so MAYBE the mare was fed too rich. We won’t ever know, though. This was a wonderful colt and everyone thought he had big things in store.

NOT what you want to hear and hopefully you can nip it in the bud, either with meds and diet or surgery.

[jennywho]

Thanks Laurie, we did take rads of the “good” stifle, but for some reason the processor wasn’t working and I haven’t heard if they showed anything.

Slewdledo I am sorry about your boy, but appreciate hearing about a worst case scenario. I sent the rads to dr. S as well. My SO first saw the filly when she was a week old and said “I haven’t seen you this excited about a foal since Ema (multiple stakes winner)”

This filly will run up to you full blast with her ears pinned flat, she just wants to be petted though.

[Kyzteke]

This exact same thing happened to a friend of mine – the foal was about 7-8 mos old as I recall.

She started not being able to get up when she went down.

Rad= OCD of stifle.

I had heard about the OCD pellets, used them and recommended them to my friend, as this was an Arab x and she was not going to spend $$ on surgery.

She talked to Dr. Beebe and he recommend the filly NOT be confined, be fed a double dose of the pellets and be re-xrayed in a year.

Within 10 days of starting the supplement the filly was barely limping. Also, she was smart enough that she learned it was only when she lay down her left side that she had trouble getting up. The right stifle was clear, so when she lay down on her right side she didn’t have the issues getting up.

I think it was 3-4 mos later the friend asked if I would take the filly (long story). I did, and continued on the OCD pellets for another3-4 mos. Again, there was no confinement – she was a liberty in a 4 acre pasture 24/7.

I never did re-xray her, but she lived with me for another year and I never saw her take a bad step. Here is a video of her at 2 yrs of age. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueqi9yv8nTk&list=UU7I73Q992WVpbYMILxJUctg&index=4&feature=plcp

Because of an off-set fetlock in front, she was not suitable for the sport her breeding indicated (endurance) so she was sold with full disclosure to a woman who wanted her for some trail riding and (I kid you not) TRICK training. Seriously! The gal had a palomino mini with four white socks and my friend’s filly was a palie with 4 white socks, so the buyer wanted to develop a trick act with the 2 of them! Perfect home for this horse!

The filly turned 3 last summer and has never taken an unsound step for her new owner either. In fact, she called me recently very proud that the filly was chosen o/o many applicants to be trained by some famous trick trainer guy…

Of course, if you can afford the surgery and you expect your gal to be a serious performance horse I would go that route.

But just wanted to lift up your spirits some – the outcome may well not be as dire as it appears now.

Good luck!! And give Dr. Beebe a call.

[quietann]

K, that is a beautiful filly and the trick training with her and a matching mini would be adorable.

OP, best wishes for your baby… OCD is not a subject I know anything about at all.

[Perfect_Pony]

First, they are not “almost always” bi-lateral, I think the statistic is something like 60% that they are bi-lateral in the stifle, and maybe a bit more common in the hocks. There IS a significant enough risk that there will be multiple OCDs in multiple joints that a good vet will recommend doing full xrays of stifles, hocks and fetlocks before doing surgery since it doesn’t make sense to lay down a horse and not take care of all of them.

But I have known other horses to only have one lesion in one joint, and I owned one.

Depending on the lesion and the filly’s age some vets recommend doing large dosages of Adequan for a while and seeing if they resolve on their own before doing surgery. But even if surgery is indicated in your case I know of so many successful OCD surgeries I cannot even count. Once I went through it with my mare people around me started to come out of the woodwork about their horses.

Even with my mare being 7 years old, having a very large lesion, and having multiple complications due to what we know know is her neurologcial disease, her stifle surgery was ultimately a success. She is sound on it and you would never know by looking at it she even had the surgery.

[Oakstable]

I didn’t think it was possible to radiograph stifles “in the field.” I’ve been told you need to take a horse to an equine hospital to get decent views.

Not so?

[siegi_b]

Ok, here is yet another opinion from somebody who has been in a similar situation and had access to to some of the best surgeons in the country…

OCD (the “inherited” kind) is typically bilateral, so getting radiographs of both legs is very important. When you only have one “OCD” and you get sudden symptoms and the horse is quite young, you’re typically dealing with an injury.

Regardless of which type it is, it needs to be dealt with and that’s when you get the best leg vet you can find. That vet will be able to tell you whether or not the fragment is interfering with the joint, and if it does (s)he will recommend surgery. The fact that your filly just went lame very recently should result in a pretty good prognosis for the outcome of such surgery.

It’s not the end of the world but you may be looking at surgery plus some rehab time.

Good luck!

[caryledee]

@Oakstable;6090071

I didn’t think it was possible to radiograph stifles “in the field.” I’ve been told you need to take a horse to an equine hospital to get decent views.

Not so?

This used to be true. However, the vets around here can now do stifle x rays in the field. Advances in technology I guess!

[JB]

Yep, I had a stifle xrayed “in the field” (it was in a barn aisle LOL) with a good, portable digital xray machine.

[Ssporthorses]

Not quite the same situation, I had a 6 year old, schooling 1.30m and showing 1.00m lightly who had never taken a lame step get x-rays for a potential buyer.
Large OCD showed up in the right hock and the left was clear.

Buyer was not interested in purchasing horse and I opted to have it surgically removed and rehab the horse.

Once he was back in work after 6 weeks of stall rest, Adequan shots and a rehab routine, he was jumping better and movement had improved.

He ended up selling for my asking price less than a year later and X-rayed clean.

I know stifles are more serious, but there are happy endings

[Oakstable]

What about a horse with spongey stifles but no lameness?

[Perfect_Pony]

@siegi b.;6090079

Ok, here is yet another opinion from somebody who has been in a similar situation and had access to to some of the best surgeons in the country…

OCD (the “inherited” kind) is typically bilateral, so getting radiographs of both legs is very important. When you only have one “OCD” and you get sudden symptoms and the horse is quite young, you’re typically dealing with an injury.

OK, I too was dealing with “some of the best surgeons in the world”. Not one of them said they could tell me one way or another what the cause of the OCD lesion was, and that it being genetic had anything at all to do with it being bi-lateral or not. They simply said in every OCD case that one should get COMPLETE xrays. Not just the same joint on both sides but ALL joints.

And just an FYI, a horse I had on trial and passed on had stifle OCD and it was pretty clearly NOT from an injury. She had it in one stifle AND in the fetlock on the same side, but was clean on the entire left side.

[password]

Where’s the cheapest place to buy OCD pellets?

[ise]

I would recommend that you have her x-rayed again at a clinic that has the big x-ray machines. The Stifle is a big joint and it’s difficult to get really good x-rays in the field with a portable unit. We had one yearling that was off and we took him straight to the clinic so we had very good x-rays and there was no damage. We have had field x-rays show things that with better x-rays and evaluations by surgeons turned out to be nothing.

[Perfect_Pony]

@ise@ssl;6090373

I would recommend that you have her x-rayed again at a clinic that has the big x-ray machines. The Stifle is a big joint and it’s difficult to get really good x-rays in the field with a portable unit. We had one yearling that was off and we took him straight to the clinic so we had very good x-rays and there was no damage. We have had field x-rays show things that with better x-rays and evaluations by surgeons turned out to be nothing.

I would think (hope??) that any vet and surgeon worth their weight would recommend the filly go to a clinic and have a full work up before any surgery. At least that is what happened to me at UC Davis. The minute there appeared to be an OCD lesion they did xrays of every joint, did full blood-work, and I had multiple meetings/calls with both the attending vet and the surgeon before any final treatment was decided. Every single treatment possibility and all the risks were carefully laid out.

I would be highly suspect of any vet who did anything less.

[Slewdledo]

[QUOTE=password;6090314]
Where’s the cheapest place to buy OCD pellets?[/QUOTE]

If you order it direct from the company, they’ll send you two tubs even though you only pay for one.

[jennywho]

THANK YOU! Still waiting to hear back from WSU, but I definately won’t do anything surgery wise until she’s been radiographed there. I am thankful for our local vets, but the problem is there just isn’t enough work for them to be extremely competent with xray or ultrasound. It’s a 3 hour trailer ride to WSU and we won’t be going anywhere until this darn storm is over.

That’s a good idea to do all joints while we’re at it. Her hocks aren’t swollen but they do look a bit funky.

Looked at some rads online and unfortunatley what I remember of hers, she’s right up in the severe category.

Patience with anything other than animals and kids is not my strong suit.

[password]

[QUOTE=Slewdledo;6090784]
If you order it direct from the company, they’ll send you two tubs even though you only pay for one.[/QUOTE]

Thank you!