has your horse ever been severely misdiagnosed? share your stories! i’m intrigued by the topic and want to have nightmares.
Ugh…four different vets thought my (then) three year old gelding had hock OCD. Agreed to surgery to get it done while he was young. Turns out there was no OCD. Stall rest still required due to surgery. Stifle issues (mild upward fixation of patella) created from stall rest that took over a year to diagnose (bone scan, blocks, x-rays, joint injections, IRAP, etc…). Stifles were finally fixed with the ligament splitting procedure. Ulcers created from surgery / stall rest. Basically, we lost two years of training to get him back to normal from an unnecessary OCD surgery. He’s 6 now and is doing great. 
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That one will be hard to top.
We had a horse decades ago step into a hole, cut his leg a bit and strain his back badly.
Horse was too injured on his back end, had trouble walking around, not fit to be hauled, vet came to him.
Vet spent long time carefully stitching his superficial cuts on his leg, while ignoring that we kept pointing out he looked seriously injured on his back.
Vet insisted on coming himself to look and rebandage every two days, did so two more times, kept saying nothing wrong with his back, time will fix that.
Horse was getting worse, had trouble getting around.
After a while, leg healed fine, horse went down and could not get up.
Vet came and decided horse was past saving and euthanized him.
We will always think that if he had treated him for that back injury along with his cut leg, the horse may have recuperated, not become worse, but who knows.
We quit using that vet, that before had been very good and sensible, but now seemed to not make sense.
He eventually quit and went to a vet college and became a professor there.
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Well, my then 27 yo, who had two previous bouts of severe hind end ataxia from EPM, presented with the same symptoms. Was circling in his paddock and had gotten pretty worked up. I could not get hold of my regular vet so called in a different vet since it was an emergency. In the past, we had given Banamine, DMSO and hydrocortisone to reduce inflammation, then treatment for the EPM with the cocktail.
New vet comes, takes temp - it is low grade 101.8 and sees urine dribbling in addition to the circling/almost falling. I explain to him that the urine dribble is a residual of past EPM bouts and the temp is probably him circling continuously.
Now, I have known this new vet since he was a child. He knows I have taken care of hundreds of horses in my 40 years in the business and there is not much I haven’t seen.
He proceeds to tell me the horse has the neurological form of rhino- ehv1. He tells me I need an emergency blood test sent to Cornell. It is of course Friday afternoon, so it must be overnighted and then an additional fee paid for weekend work. I explained to him that I have seen this horse do exactly this twice before in the past 7 years. There is no way the horse has ehv 1. No new horses have been on the property, we have not been to shows with other horses (this one was retired) since it is March in New England. We are a closed herd at that point in the season.
Nope, he says this is a reportable disease and the State Vet will want to quarantine you. So against my better judgement I agree to this $800 blood test.
I finally get hold of my regular vet - he was dealing with a fire at home - and he tells me to stop the blood test, it is EPM. I call emergency vet and it is already on its way.
New vet calls me Tuesday and tells me the good news is that it isn’t ehv1. The horse has EPM. No shit sherlock.
At least he had agreed to give the horse the banamine and other drugs I told him to and horse is already better.
My normal vet felt so bad he gave me a credit on my bill to cover the blood test charges.
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I have another one. Different horse. He refused to come out of his stall. Just wouldn’t move. Called vet and he says, well its winter, he probably slipped. Get him hand walking and I will be over to see him in a couple of days.
Another vet is in the barn for another client and says ‘get him into Tufts’ I think he broke his hip.
I call Tufts for an appointment and go into the barn the next morning to trailer him and find blood and pus everywhere.
Poor guy had slipped and must have gotten a sliver of ice into the back side of his sheath between his thighs. It abcessed and finally burst. He was immediately better.
I felt awful for dragging him around the arena to try to hand walk him and worse for thinking I was putting him down the next day.
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Yup. My old TB was dead lame on his right front. No swelling, heat, etc. Had the vet out who did xrays. Called me late morning and said he had osteomyelitis. Said nothing we could be done. Best thing was to put him down though he said my guy still seemed happy. Now my guy was in his mid-20’s at the time and was a pasture pet - lived out 24/7 in a beautiful pasture, shelter, etc. with my TB mare. Both living a damn good life. Something just wasn’t right with the diagnosis though.
Now I know my vet was headed out for a camping trip that afternoon so was rushed. I wanted the xrays for a second opinion and he said sure. I picked them up that night and brought them to the head vet at a major equine hospital (& well respected). When he reviewed the xrays he figured out took them and was extremely polite about it but he had to bite his tongue hard not to say the other vet was a total idiot. He kept it very professional.
The night before the xrays were reviewed guess what…my old guy was suddenly better. He blew a frigin abscess out the top of his hoof. It was a bad one so makes sense why he was dead lame. He was 95% better. Within a couple of days he was totally sound. And no he did NOT have osteomyelitis!
Moral of the story…GET A SECOND OPINION!
And no that vet isn’t allowed to touch my horse(s) ever again!
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My then-17-year-old gelding started falling in the trailer for no apparent reason. Ran through a series of neuro tests with first vet - all negative. She refused to do any of the other tests I asked for (Lyme, etc.) and insisted it was behavioral. Yes, my bombproof Mr. Perfect teenaged gelding suddenly decided he wasn’t doing the trailer thing one day. Instead of refusing to get on (still walked right on without issue), he decided that falling down in it would be the better idea.
Totally.
Next vet, two more exams, determined arthritis in the neck. Four neck injections later, all better.
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Wheeellllllll 6 yes SIX days in a well known “horsepital” in MA while they tested my boy for everything under the sun on his insides because he was having some trouble passing manure…which momma thought was because of back pain so made sure his back Xrays went in right along with him and kept mentioning to every vet that he was still bucking when I touched his back…to come out with a “non diagnosis”, strict refeeding protocol gastroguard and basically best wishes it worked…to be fair when scoped they saw “petichae on the duodenum…we don’t see that” “umm is that possibly from parasites or the Zimectrin Gold he was wormed with just before this all started and blew his mouth up? or just because things are not moving fast enough?” “ummmm we have never seen petichea on the duodenum” well their plan wasn’t working so well after 5 days so I played a hail mary restarted banamine despite cautions that was bad for his digestive tract because my theory was “well neither is being uncomfortable not really eating and grimacing every(all too infrequent) time he has to pass manure and their plan is not working…He is going down wether I am right or wrong so I gotta at least try” and wouldn’t ya know next morning empty hay net, full stall of poop and bright eyed boy…instantly got on the phone again with regular vet to report IT WORKED IT IS HIS BACK and they were out in record time to inject his back…moral of the story listen to your gut.
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My guy came out NQR after owning him about a month. Not lame- but different. Not wanting to move out etc. Vet comes out and decides it’s the LH. Xrays his Lt hoof/pastern area and says he has a “floating bone chip” just under the surface of the skin. Says it is causing tissue irritation and needs to be removed- should be easy. Does the surgery himself later that week.
Get’s a bit a dodgy when I ask how it went. Says they had a hard time locating it, but that it went well. The area is all sorts of torn up. It is obvious that he had to dig around a lot to “find it”. Takes a long time to heal, and never heals quite right.
I follow-up with another vet about 6 months later, she asks if xrays were ever taken post surgery to show that “the bone chip” was gone. I say no. She xrays. It looks EXACTLY the same. The thing that first vet was calling a bone chip was actually just some calcified cartilage. I had to have the area operated on a year later to do a wound revision because it still haven’t healed right. The sutures didn’t hold, and it took ages to heal from the 2nd surgery. Still never healed right.
Thankfully, he is sound and it wasn’t worse. But still.
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4 yo gray horse turns up one day with area of opacity on eye. First vet treats for ulcer. So does second vet when first treatment produces no improvement. Can’t remember much about second vet’s treatment but I do remember him saying it couldn’t be a melanoma as horse was too young. Never mind that horse had already had 3 melanomas removed from under tail and on his neck. It wasn’t until their boss came out & examined him that the correct diagnosis - ocular melanoma - what a surprise! occurred.
I still use one of the vets who mis-diagnosed him as he is generally pretty decent. But I would not hesitate to go to Rood & Riddle or OSU if need be.
I’m at work, 100 miles away, when the trainer calls. My two-year-old has a swelling on her face. Vet on call comes out and examines her. Diagnoses a granular cyst with fly eggs. Excises it. Should be done deal. Nope. Next day it’s more swollen. Trainer hauls her to local, vet hospital. Diagnosis now tumor. Has to be removed. Could cause paralysis. Vet assures me that he can do it because he was going to practice on a cadaver they had there. I go ballistic. I was done with 'Vets-R-Us." I demand that trainer haul her to Alamo Pintado, which is several hundred miles away in Central Ca. I don’t recall if we argued. Wouldn’t have mattered. That was where she was going.
New diagnosis and surgery done. For the life of me, I can’t remember the name of what she had. I left her there for several weeks for post-op care. Oddly, the fees Alamo charged were less on all aspects of the surgery and care than the local facilities.
I suppose I could now vent on the errors of medical doctors treating family members and myself. I’ll close by saying the vets have a better track record.
Morgan gelding, I think he was maybe 7ish, 8 when we really started to try and track down his issues. Prior to that it’d just been put to growing pains and he’d be given time off and would be fine for a few months, and then more time off. Had his regular vet look at him, he had regular chiro work. What he had was an intermittent lameness on the left hind. Regular vet finally said he needs to go to a specialty vet because she couldn’t figure it out. Now, mind you, all this time I kept saying that it had to be in his back somewhere. You’d go to collect him up, and he’d start staggering. Same with any bend to the right.
Took him to a specialist and she does the regular in-hand lameness exams and flex tests. Decides we should x-ray his stifle and then finding nothing on the x-rays, inject it just to see if it helps. Of course, it didn’t. Thought maybe I’d try acupuncture on him and took him to our local big clinic. AND send him all the paperwork and whatnot from the previous year’s vet. He does lameness exam, says it’s some sort of disastrous suspensory injury with terrible prognosis for recovery (I didn’t realize those could come and go on a daily basis), but let’s x-ray that left hock to see. Nothing. General diagnosis for $500 is “huh, weird”, more or less. I was ticked.
Finally decide we have to do a bone scan. His regular vet felt it was the only way we were going to figure it out. Sent him for the bone scan, which came back hot in his fetlocks and hocks, and a teeny, weeny light shadow on his back. Sure enough - kissing spines. For which this horse had never, EVER reacted to his back being palpated. Tried injections, they worked twice, then surgery, which was a miracle.
Lots of minor ones, but probably the worst was a client’s very nice young horse who colicked and didn’t respond to banamine/ oil etc. done at the farm. He was not super violent, just wanted to lie down, but clearly painful and our regular vet felt he likely needed surgery. Owner agreed, so hauled him to major vet hospital. The admitting vet insisted that it was botulism, not colic, and convinced the owner to treat with the botulism anti-toxin-- horse suffered for several hours before dying of a rupture.
This thread is horrifying and probably something I should’ve have skipped as a paranoid, relatively new horse owner. 
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I just went through a “pulled tendon” in the pastern… haha! My regular vet couldn’t get my guy in, he was off, nqr for a few days. I wasn’t 100% sure what was going on. He wasn’t acting like an abscess, but was a little ouchy. So, when my regular vet couldn’t get him in for a couple weeks for a lameness exam I called my secondary vet and he got him in the next day.
Vet #1 comes out, watches him walk & jog, flexes him and says “yep, hes off”. Says he isn’t off enough to grade him on a lameness scale. He “thinks” its a pulled tendon in the fetlock/pastern area due to some slight swelling above the hoof. I asked about doing a ultrasound or x-ray and vet #1 says there is no need - here’s a jar of liniment, we’ll treat him conservatively he’ll be fine in a couple weeks.
The following week my farrier comes out for trims and I mention what vet #1 says. Farrier says he’ll have a look at that hoof last. He trims my mare first them this gelding. When he got to that hoof as he cleaned the hoof up, he said here is the issue, he has a nail or something in his hoof. He helped us wrap his hoof up until we could get him into our main vet.
I called my regular vet (#2) and they made room to get him in the next morning. We hauled him in, took x-rays and it missed major structures by millimeters. As it was we had to wrap and soak for 3 weeks. But, I have a sound horse 5 weeks later.
Go with your gut and get a second opinion if you feel you need to!
Mare came up lame, called the farrier thought is was an abscess. Could not find anything. Mare still lame (never abscess lame but lame). Took her to vet who diagnosed her with check ligament injury=stall rest, small paddock etc. Finally had the farrier back out for regular shoeing of the horses and sure enough was an abscess! It finally had grown out enough to find. Never showed on rads.
Different mare, showed up lame rear leg, with slight swelling from fetlock down. Took to vet, mare did not react to hoof testers so vet started blocking. Did I believe finally blocked sound, vet was thinking soft tissue. Next day mare’s leg if blown up all the way to the stifle with cellulitis. Took her to UGA for treatment, full standing wraps and IV antibiotics. Came home and abscess had blown out the coronary band while at UGA. Big vet bill cause by poking needles in the swollen leg that was caused by the abscess.
Got a call from my farm sitter, one of my mare’s is NQR. Gave banamine half dose, still NQR later that day. Had her call the vet, I am on the way home. Vet treated thought easy colic, oil and water should be fine. Horrid drought, had been seeing this a good bit. Mare got worse, vet came back out. Small colon (vet did not tell me that small colon is usually only a surgical fix, another vet did later) left tube in, but could not get water down tube with just the funnel vet left but on IV fluids. Mare was much worse by next day (not a surgical candidate due to other medical issues) had her euthanized. I now know more about small colon impaction i.e. IV fluids do not help, only NG fluids can help but most often surgical.
Vets seem to miss abscesses a lot.
My mare was mildly lame, left hind. Small effusion in the fetlock. I wasn’t riding at the time due to foot surgery so decided to take the wait and see approach. The lameness didn’t resolve…maybe a degree worse…but the swelling wasn’t any worse so decided after 3 days to call the vet. Now mind you I was on one leg and could barely drive my car (left legged) so did not feel I could wrangle truck and trailer so I had to enlist the help of a fellow boarder to haul her in. Vet practice wouldn’t send a mobile vet…we can do so much better at the clinic yada, yada, yada.
Haul her to the clinic. Vet does flexion and trotting. Puts the hoof testers on her and I thought she was more than a little pissed about that but he dismissed it. X-rayed her left hind and determined she had sprained it as you could see the effusion but the joint looked good. Put her on bute for 3 days and of course, she was better. I decided I could forego going to the barn the next day (Friday). I went out Saturday and her left hind was a stovepipe from foot clear up above the hock…massive swelling… and of course she couldn’t walk! My friend helped me get her into the barn. We were a pair. Me on crutches and a 3 legged horse:lol:. I asked the barn owner if I could put her up in a stall fearing that she had torn something horribly…DDFT or suspensory. My friend helped me cold soak her leg and when we were done, I palpated her leg. I got to her foot and despite 20 minutes in very cold water and a pretty cold early Spring day, her lateral heel was blazing hot. Called back the BO and said never mind, I am pretty sure we are dealing with an abscess. We hobbled back out to her paddock. Damn, I hate doing nothing when they are that lame but felt what little movement she would get would help pump it out.
Came back out Sunday and said, my, she is quite a bit better. So much so that I had to have someone else lead her as I couldn’t keep up with her. Picked up her left hind and sure enough a nice big hole at the coronet band on that lateral heel.
I was so glad that it busted so quickly. I was afraid the 3 days of bute were going to slow it way down.
$365 donation to the vet practice. Abscess was my second thought…it should have been my first.
Susan
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My offering: Maresy came in from turnout one day, small (1"or so) round bump just below peak of withers. Figured bug bite. Next day her withers were swollen beyond belief, and if you so much as tried to touch, mare would drop her back and moan, and try to get away. Vet came, went over her generally, tranquilized to be able to look at withers, said yes, probably bug bite, bad reaction. Put her on meds, said cold hose, etc. 10 days later very limited improvement - some ability to touch her, swelling moving around and down, but still hot to touch. This vet says - time for 2nd opinion.
Called in another vet with fancy equipment. Ultra sound shows pocket of fluid where original bump was. xrays show “irregularities to spinal processes” consistent with significant trauma to withers. Took weeks to be able to brush her there, more weeks to get even a saddle pad laying there, and more weeks until finally rideable. Never did figure out what she did.
When one of my horses was 6, she started to buck and kick out when we would ask her to turn left after a jump (in the canter). Then it progressed to her acting quite uncomfortable cantering on the left lead at all. One vet immediately started with the hocks (even though the radiographs did not indicate a problem) and wanted to inject. After that didn’t have any impact, they thought ulcers (one month of gastrogard later, no better). My regular vet thought it was heat cycle issues and tried Regu-mate (to her credit, she did do a repro exam and found one ovary producing a crazy amount of follicles in January!). Still no change in the behavior.
Then a vet x-rayed her back and diagnosed her with kissing spine. Bottom line–the x-rays weren’t high enough quality to determine that. When we did further x-rays—no kissing spine. I was pushing for a bone scan the entire time—but this vet kept wanting to try one more treatment (despite no definitive diagnosis). Wanted to do SI injections, mesotherapy, SW therapy, etc. . . . .
Decided to go to a different vet that wanted to start with the bone scan. We got that done and the SI area lit up—so he knew where to ultrasound. From the US, found that there had been a previous injury (tear) to the SI ligament which had just filled in with scar tissue. It was on her right side of the SI—so basically, any cantering to the left would require her to “stretch” the ligament on the right—which was the source of discomfort. The issue required some serious stall rest and rehab—but horse is completely healed and doing great. Hasn’t had one SI issue since she healed up, and is happily cantering and jumping.
To be fair, these types of performance issues are hard for vets. The horse isn’t presenting as “lame”, but the owner is having issues under saddle. Many times owners are happy to have vets “inject” and a certain percentage of the time—the horse feels better—problem solved. But I would rather spend my money on more diagnostics before doing any procedures on my horses!
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Back in November a vet I trusted very much diagnosed my then-4-year-old with proximal suspensory desmitis based on blocking–no x-rays, no ultrasound. He recommended surgery and after much thought and internet research, I agreed. This same vet saved my other horse’s career and probably life with a creative surgery 10 years ago, so I had complete faith in him. Pre-surgery ultrasound showed mildly irregular fiber patterns but nothing crazy.
Nine months later, with the horse still lame, a different vet tried a low 4-point block and this resolved the lameness. Ultrasound of suspensory branches showed much more pathology in the branches than was ever found higher up. Apparently the first vet skipped straight from foot to proximal suspensory, without blocking anything in the middle, so he missed that. Looks like I spent $3,000 and a lot of time and stress on a surgery that didn’t need to happen at all.
