Would you all do neck rads on a PPE?

[EventingChase]

How did yours turn out?

[KayGee]

I ended up putting him down shortly after diagnosis when it was apparent that he wouldn’t really be safe to be ridden.

[beowulf]

Oh no. Jingling for you.

[EventingChase]

I am so very sorry. It’s not easy and there are so many things that can go wrong with them.

[Sticky_Situation]

@Amberley

Back to the question though I mostly x-ray necks mostly to look for injuries caused by horses puling back (stop tying horses to telephone poles to teach them to “give to pressure” ffs) or arthritis from being ridden too short or an injury etc. I wouldn’t buy one with a severe malformation but a mild one I might be OK with on an older horse.

Devils advocate here a bit, but … if tying were a major cause of irreversible neurological impairment due to neck injuries, why aren’t we seeing scores of roping horses, trail horses, and barrel horses being diagnosed with neck problems and declared irrevocably damaged, instead of all these fancy dressage horses that are doted on and never tied fast?

Edit: I’m not saying that a horse can’t hurt itself by pulling back while tied. But overwhelmingly, horses that are retired due to neck arthritis seem to be dressage horses and sport horses that get handled with kid gloves and all the chiropractic and supplements in the world, NOT sturdy little stock horses that stand tied at the trailer all day at the barrel race — but the latter one is much more likely to have been left tied as part of his training process.

[Amberley]

@Sticky_Situation

if tying were a major cause of irreversible neurological impairment due to neck injuries, why aren’t we seeing scores of roping horses, trail horses, and barrel horses being diagnosed with neck problems and declared irrevocably damaged

Because they don’t do the diagnostics? Most horses with some neck arthritis can do fine as long as they aren’t asked to do much in the way of flexion or speed. Plenty of low level hunters, trail horses and lesson horses out there with stiff necks.

The neuro stuff we are seeing in sporthorses is typically not cervical arthritis, or at least not that kind. Some people think its ECVM, some EDM, some connective tissue disease. No one knows what’s causing it except in a few cases where a direct cause can be found and pointed to.

Also I don’t know how much time you’ve spent around age 12+yo stock and barrel horses but I have spent a fair bit and almost none of them are acceptably sound by sporthorse standards.

[Sticky_Situation]

They may not need to carry continuous neck flexion like a dressage horse, but rope horses and barrel horses very much need to work at speed and have good proprioception, though.

[wanderlust]

@Amberley

Because that’s how a lot of them start: big lanky movement but a little too loose-goosey looking and the more they are collected up the more uncoordinated it gets. Hand waved off as tension or immaturity at first and three or four years later you are holding an empty halter and an empty wallet. I saw that post and the way that horses moves is something I would actively avoid at this point due to the risk. He’s probably fine since he had to jump at the inspections and most of the bad ones can’t jump properly.

This right here. I have the empty halter of what was a lovely imported 5yo who displayed exactly this and it was initially chalked up by the vet to awkward growthiness in what was going to eventually be a big horse. It wasn’t.

[KayGee]

Sorry for my abrupt reply. My father was admitted to the ICU last for stubbornly not addressing a prostate issue until the pain was too great.

At first I didn’t think it was going to be bad since COTH has plenty of stories of sound, going strong horses with cervical changes.

It became clear quite quickly that this would not be his case. I couldn’t find a suitable pasture or companion situation for him (everyone thought I was making it out to be more than it was and wanted to ride him anyhow). A friend of a friend had pastured her cervical horse, and he lost the ability to turn his neck in his early teens. Just no, and I made the decision.

I felt like a loser, almost quit riding, was an emotional wreck, and the only that held me together was that he would never have pain again.

I hope you get some answers with your horse. All the best.

[Amberley]

Again I think you are conflating two things I mentioned: one is cervical arthritis and one is neurological symptoms. Cervical arthritis has to be pretty bad to cause neuro symptoms, it is far more likely to just cause inability to bend or flex, business in the mouth, TMJ pain and the appearance of front end lameness. If you don’t x-ray the neck those get put down to other things.

[Xctrygirl]

This is actually a false statement. And I have proof from my own horse that I brought to see Dr. Johnson.

He had cervical arthritis. He had DJD at C5/C6 and C6/C7.

ALL he ever had in terms of symptoms were:

Huge reluctance to jump down a bank
Dropped rails at 3’6" at shows, less so at home and in lessons
Did a funny hind end step thing (Video: https://youtu.be/lOGto6OZxEM)

This is from his last or second to last show. The rails were an issue late and my riding was (Sadly) not as good as it is now. It wasn’t a train wreck but things weren’t right either in his body. He was rested and improved mightily in low to no work.

GIN JOINT ridden by EMILY DAIGNAULT SALVAGGIO Low Adult Jumpers Devon Fall...

A friend has him and we have made sure to prioritize his wellness for the rest of his life. I mean he did help me win our division at the Tb Makeover.

Em

[RAyers]

Uh, no. I’m not sure how well the cord has been mapped in a horse, but in a human we can clearly show in MRI STIR and T2 imaging that facet joint arthritis can cause neurological symptoms, some as benign as a occasional tingling in a limb. CT will verify the arthritis in the facets.

[RAyers]

You can NOT separate the two. The 4 facet joints on each vertebra are intimately connected to the nerve roots. You state, “ Cervical arthritis has to be pretty bad to cause neuro symptoms, it is far more likely to just cause inability to bend or flex, business in the mouth, TMJ pain and the appearance of front end lameness.” The “has to be pretty bad…” is where you are incorrect. Both caudal and cranial facets, even with minor inflammation can cause discomfort. At the same time, there could be massive radiographic changes and the horse shows no symptoms.

The world of equine spinal understanding is about 10 years old and right now every new case seems to create people who claim they know all the answers. The reality is we are 50 years into human spine and we still don’t even know what a normal spine looks like. Most likely because there isn’t one.

[beowulf]

Guessing you mean ECVM? It’s very complicated. Like cervical arthritis there is not always a correlation between its presence and symptoms. But it’s much more severe since it’s a congenital malformation that affects much more than just the neck. What we do know about this disease is that it does compromise the horse - in different ways. The full extent of how badly compromised the horse is by this malformation isn’t obvious until necropsy.

Cervical arthritis is also complicated. There’s no proven correlation between severity of symptoms and severity of x-rays. And some things can make CA worse, like bone spurs, narrowing channels, even poor trimming. Some horses will be severely neurologic. Others won’t. One thing to remember about CA is that it can be anywhere in the neck. Up top or closer to the withers — that will affect prognosis more than how ugly it is on rads.

[DownYonder]

I’ve got a friend looking for a young event horse right now. While discussing her various options, the topic of x-rays came up and I remembered a conversation I had quite some years back with the sports medicine vet that treated my horse for many years. We had been talking about the possibility of cervical arthritis and he mentioned that nerve impingement can result from narrowing channels as a horse’s skeleton reaches maturity.

That makes sense considering that the very last growth plates to fuse are those in the vertebral column, and it doesn’t happen until the horse is at least 5-1/2 years of age - or later, esp. in taller horses with longer necks. The presence of testosterone may also play a role – we know for instance that testosterone closes growth plates in the long bones (gelding a colt before he reaches maturity will likely cause him to grow taller than he would if he hadn’t been gelded).

So while x-raying the neck of a horse under 6 years of age can provide a benchmark to see what is there – or not there – at that stage of growth, it is no guarantee that the horse won’t develop cervical arthritis or narrowing channels as it reaches full maturity. (And as already mentioned, there is always the risk of issues developing due to injury or training methods.)

[beowulf]

Well, yes and no. Yes, you can get an x-ray of the horse’s spine and see that there is some degree of vertebral malformation. You have no idea what is affected until you do a necropsy.

The reason it is called ECVM and not EVM anymore is because veterinarians have realized that it does not affect just the cervical vertebrae. When there’s a tranversive step missing, for instance, muscle/nerve/ligament attachments will attach to other areas of the body and this complexity is why the condition has been renamed. The only definitive way to diagnose the severity of the condition is by necropsy.

What specifically is the neurological condition you are referring to that is killing young dressage bred horses? If you have more information on that, I would like to know. My understanding is the main neurological condition that is causing young sport horses to be PTS is ECVM at the present time, since it is noted to be disproportionately diagnosed in WBs presenting for neurological symptoms by major vet schools.

[Xctrygirl]

@Amberley

whatever tf neurological condition thing that is killing young dressage bred warmbloods that is NOT cervical arthritis. This was in relation to the person who brought up the thread on Dressage about the way a posted horse moved and part of the discussion about why people are gun shy about those big loose horses these days.

That’s EDM.

At least from my cheap seat.

(Which many know is actually front row on this issue)

Em

[Libby2563]

FWIW I also understand @Amberley to be referring to EDM.

This seems like a good thread in which to ask about this study I ran across recently, which suggests that C6/C7 malformation does not cause clinical signs: https://beva.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/evj.13140

I was surprised at the finding. Anyone more knowledgeable than me care to weigh in?

[beowulf]

That makes sense! I was thinking it was something new and didn’t even go to the usual suspects. My brain tends to take things so literally sometimes.

That study corroborates what I thought was somewhat understood, that the clinical evidence of it didn’t equal automatic neurologic signs and that it seemed to vary on a case by case basis.

[Xctrygirl]

Same as what @beowulf said and what I know to be true. It’s interesting, but correlation to symptoms is not established. (In the ways that Medicine works. Not that it’s never happened)

Em