UPDATE: Diagnosis Re: Armchair Vets - Chime in! Horse resists upward canter transition

[AAHunterGal]

UPDATE - We gave her the rest of the week off after the injections last Tuesday, and I rode her walk/trot Monday - Thursday this week (mostly walk) as long/low as I could get her with her baby brain and some Spooky Season weather.

Unfortunately no improvement. She may feel slightly worse now. I know that these injections could take a while but I’m very disappointed.

She’s leaning very hard into my right leg when she senses we might be about to trot and is getting worried/resisting about even going into trot now. Grinding the bit and hollowing out/pinning her ears back.

We’re doing all the carrot stretches and tummy tucks/butt lifts as well.

We’re getting her scoped on Tuesday of this coming week and hopefully we find something to corroborate her behavior there! If not, I’m getting the lameness vet back out late next week if still no improvement.

[LazyA1]

Bad heels (crushed, underrun), SI, and suspensory all kind of go hand in hand. Lets see a picture of her hind feet. And also tell us about your footing. And does she tend to stand camped under behind?

[AAHunterGal]

This problem has happened across a variety of footing, both artificial and natural. Footing is my #1 priority in a boarding facility. My current footing is the hardest I would ever allow, and it’s still quite forgiving and has a great base.

She tends to stand camped out behind, not under, which could point to tummy issues also.

I’ve also started to tack her up in her stall and she has started to put her head way down when it’s girth time - but she is never “girthy” in the sense that she doesn’t put her ears back or toss her head or give me a dirty look. But it’s new for her.

I have no good enough pictures of her hind feet. That said, I use one of the best/most trusted farriers in my area who does all of the show barns, so I trust him. They have not looked underrun to me. I’ll get some tomorrow.

[AAHunterGal]

Good lord. I think my mare has EPM.

It would track with why she got so dramatically better in April after I started her on her PSSM supplements b/c I started giving her a TON of Vitamin E and tri-amino acids. It might have stabilized her enough for symptoms to go away or subside, but after the injections weakened her immune system it came back even more than it already was.

Would also track with the up/down nature of things related to stress.

Could also potentially be Lymes but I’m leaning EPM.

I feel terrible. I’m going to get her tested while she’s at the clinic today for her scope. I’ll keep everyone posted!

[AAHunterGal]

Update: Scope came back negative. Just one small area of irritation that wasn’t ulcerated in her pyloric. Otherwise, all clear.

EPM and tick panel is off to the labs. I’ll know more early next week on that…

[starsandsun]

Please have vet pull stomach fluid and look for pH values, and send off for bacterial testing. (ugh, just saw you’ve already done scope - too late)

[outside_leg]

I haven’t personally seen EPM present this way. I’ve always seen it as tripping behind, and with the one I had to euthanize, it was the total collapse of the hind end.

You mentioned you didn’t x-ray the neck. I had a young warmblood with difficulty striking out for the canter. We chased the SI and the back, and eventually realized it was the neck that was the culprit. He’d be stiff through the neck, and it would make him stiff through his back and the SI. We injected, and then followed a strict protocol of lunging in a Pessoa rig, flatting in the equiband system, monthly chiro, and a strong focus on core work. It worked for him. Fingers crossed you get some answers, but if the EPM proves negative, consider looking at the neck.

[Warmblood1]

Still would not rule out hindgut/colonic ulcers. They would not show up on scope. Less common, but I would still treat given the situation.

[AAHunterGal]

@outside_leg

I haven’t personally seen EPM present this way. I’ve always seen it as tripping behind, and with the one I had to euthanize, it was the total collapse of the hind end.

She trips behind quite often. Since her SI injections it’s increased to 1-2x per ride

[starsandsun]

Kind of echoing Warmblood1’s comment … I’ve gone through just about everything, and what changed the whole feel of my horse (he now feels like he’s using his whole body and not like a bag of parts) was realizing he’s probably been holding himself to avoid gut pain, and I stopped to address gut health. At his worst, he was absolutely tripping, grinding, etc. Tight muscles made for inefficient movement and it was no fun for either of us. The canter was a sh*tshow.

[AAHunterGal]

EPM and Lymes were both “negative.” Oy, this mare!

Today she did feel better. Swingier and looser through her back and body. Still tripped hard when I played around asked for the canter though and fell apart.

Vet said to put her on Sucrulfate for 30 days, we’ve had her on it for 3 thus far. Said she didn’t want to do Misoprostol unless Sucrulfate wasn’t working after we rescoped her.

Still debating whether or not to get her neck looked at. That’s the only thing we haven’t actually seen or examined.

Her hind feet aren’t sore/don’t have contracted heels or thrush.

[greywithchrome]

With the tripping not being related to EPM or Lyme I think I would definitely look at the neck /:

[mmeqcenter]

Agreed

[weixiao]

Definitely worth looking into the neck but I would also not rule out feet, even if she doesn’t appear to be sore or have issues with her heels.

[atr]

Another vote for neck here. I had a horse come to me as “won’t canter and most certainly won’t jump.” Turned out to be a neck issue that with a round of injections and mindful riding was easily manageable.

[AAHunterGal]

Update

I took her up to see Dr. Allen at VEI yesterday. She presented with some neurological symptoms which shifted the focus of the visit. My mare responded to things in unexpected ways. Examples:

1. She was more lame on her RH after flexions jogging straight than she was in the round pen trotting on a circle.

2. She was sore in her back on palpations but didn’t react at all to the weighted surcingle. (Though to be fair, Dr. Allen is a strong guy and he pressed pretty hard - I probably would have flinched, too).

3. He very much expected to see some arthritis in the neck based on her exam - but he didn’t - at least nothing he thought was abnormal.

Today the internist is taking a look at the neck rads to get her opinion. I’m also sending them to my friends at CSU to see what they think.

We’re heading back up to VEI in mid December for a bone scan to get a better picture of everything and how it all relates. No more neuro diagnostics at this time have been suggested, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the internist recommends them after taking a look at things/hearing her exam history.

There were a few things that could potentially be related to her RH but we didn’t dig into those yet. She does have a right hip drop in addition which is why the bone scan will help get a better view of the SI area to see what’s happening.

The one thing he DID tell me is that there is something going on with my mare and it’s not all in my head / it’s not “normal” baby resistance behavior.

I’ll keep continue to keep everyone updated. There were some scary diagnoses floated around…

[Lunabear1988]

I’m sorry to hear you haven’t found anything concrete yet but I’m glad that the vet confirmed that it was right of you to be looking into this stuff with her. NQR with no clear answer is no fun though, I’ve been there. I hope and more definite answer that is not super scary as found soon.

[AAHunterGal]

Hi all.

Sad update. My mare has been diagnosed with bilateral proximal suspensory injuries. RH is much worse than LH at this point. It has some bone remodeling and small fragments torn off. Vet says on a scale of 1-10, it’s a 4/5.

She’s going into a full on treatment/rehab assault, but I’m so devastated. All of my future plans with her are just disappearing. Even if she rehabs I don’t think I would feel comfortable asking her to be a 3’ show horse, and I also really enjoy flatwork. I feel like she would need a home that just asks less of her, especially since she was so young and has this sort of injury when she was never pushed beyond her fitness or age capabilities.

She also most likely has EPM which complicates things, because the vet can’t definitively say if her resistance is EPM related or suspensory related, or both. I think both - I think that’s also why she got SO dramatically better back in February when I started feeding her a bunch of Vitamin E. Also could be why she got worse when we injected the SI. She’s getting treatment for EPM as well and vet thinks she’ll make a full recovery there since neuro symptoms are mild.

Anyways, I know sometimes people search the forums for these issues, so just wanted to say what it wound up being now that I have a diagnosis in case it helps someone else identify theirs.

[Lunabear1988]

Ugh. Bummer, I’m so sorry to hear this. I have no expertise with either of these issues but hopefully other people can chime in. At least now you have an actual diagnosis I guess.

Thank you for letting us know. I hope she rehabs well.

[AAHunterGal]

Hi all - just wanted to pop in with an update.

We had a great recheck in late March and all looked much improved. We were cleared to start tack walking in early April. I kept her in a rehabilitation barn for the entire duration of treatment and rehab.

We had our recheck in early May and she did not hold up to the walk work and/or she did something behind the scenes to reinjure herself. Things looked almost as bad as they did in December.

The vet said that we could try therapy and rest again, but the prognosis was not great. She said that surgery would hide the pain but of course not treat the injury and in a horse so young was also not a great option.

I decided to reach out to her breeder who agreed to take her back, and she’s now living her best life there at her old home.

Thanks for everyone who gave advice on this journey! It definitely didn’t end the way I had hoped, but at least we tried everything we could and got to the bottom of why she was behaving the way she was without pushing things to a catastrophic point.