Your experience with NPA behind?

[FromTheGalaxy]

I know a lot of people like to blame the farrier when horses end up NPA, but as someone who has a horse that seems to just be naturally conformed that way, I would say don’t get too angry at your farrier yet. Yes, a lot of poor trimming/shoeing can mess up a horse’s angles by causing underrun heels and too long toes. But also not every horse has amazing hoof confirmation, and they are working with what they’ve got. I would give your farrier a chance to change the shoeing and see if they can make your horse more comfortable.

I haven’t updated my thread on this yet, but I finally got to discuss my horse’s rads with my farrier and he is scheduled to come out on the 30th. We are going to start with adding hind shoes with frog support pads and squaring the toe as much as we can. Also going to add regular pads up front to see if we can make her a bit more comfortable and encourage more sole growth. I didn’t want to immediately to go wedges if we can make her more comfortable without. Afraid mine may be one of those that the NPA is just something you have to manage her whole life. But we will see.

[GraceLikeRain]

@RJC

Farrier said my horse doesn’t have extra toe to take off and that horse might need to wear hind shoes indefinitely because we don’t know WHY the angles became bad (whether he’s sore because of the angles or the angles are due to him using himself badly because he was sore–vet more or less said the same)

Yuck. He’s negative which means he is actively uncomfortable and the farriers response is there’s nothing I can do and his feet are bad because he’s in pain. The angles aren’t going to fix themselves.

Personally, I asked my vet to call my farrier and explain what needed to be done. I despise farriers with egos who think they don’t need rads or won’t use them as a data point. Clearly the farriers hind shoes aren’t fixing the issue so the timeframe for hindend shoes is moot if he isn’t capable of fixing the angles.

If the vet says the toe can be dropped down and back, that’s what needs to happen.

[RJC]

Honestly he’s a bit of a personality to work with, but it’s worked thus far because I’ve blindly trusted him.

I do think my boy’s angles have changed over the last year. We’re at a different barn with different (perhaps more abrasive) footing in the out door, and he goes out for 14ish hours a day instead of 6. He’s also been expected to do big boy third level dressage work. I don’t know what caused difference, but I’ve felt like his front toes are too long. His hinds have mostly looked fine to me though.

And here we have rads. Hit me. I can take it. (Vet measured the angles twice and averaged them in his report which is why what is on the rad is slightly different than the rounded numbers I gave)

[RJC]

I also communicate best with my farrier in person, so for all I know, he is planning a wedge and such in addition to the shoe. But he doesn’t readily reply to texts so I haven’t gotten very far into what he’s thinking, just that he won’t be out before the planned next date and he thinks shoes are needed.

[knic]

Mine are pics grabbed off the vets machine, so excuse the quality. My horse doesn’t look like he has as much length of toe as yours. My farrier didn’t think he could take the toe height down.

[barnesthenoble]

Where is this in his trim cycle? There is plenty of toe to take in these rads. I’m not sure enough to get him to a positive PA, but at least to a neutral one. Hind shoes and wedges may still be indicated to see if that helps with the discomfort. I’m a big fan of Scoot Boot wedge pads, but I suspect a more traditional farrier may laugh at the idea.

[barnesthenoble]

It’s harder to see with the shoes, but it looks like there’s still quite a lot of toe length and height that can go here. Those shoes also look very short, and set very full to the toe, which are not what you want for a horse struggled with crushed heels and NPA.

[knic]

Yeah, really couldn’t tell you why he wasn’t fit more full behind…

Edit to add. He did take toe down and back some, this was at the end of a 4 week cycle. But didn’t feel there was enough to take off to appreciably change angle without wedging.

[RJC]

This is only two weeks after a trim

I rasped his toes a bit to square them off and bring them back a couple days after his vet appointment but I don’t know nearly enough to actually fix anything. And then I left them alone since my farrier got back to me and said he didn’t have much toe to take off.

Any chance you’d be willing to draw a line where the toe should be in the rads so I can ask for something more specific from my farrier?

[GraceLikeRain]

Not a farrier but this is what my vet said. Sometimes you both need to take the toe back to address breakover and remove more toe from the bottom. If you take more toe off than heels with the nipper you improve the heel angle relative to the toe. If you are here two weeks post trim you’re ending up much more negative with even more toe at the end of the cycle.

Mine just measured flat to slightly negative half way through the cycle so by 6 weeks my farrier took off a lot of toe and was able to do a pretty decent angle change. He said that if that was too much sole contact with the ground we could add a pad or pour in but he avoids wedges behind as much as possible.

[RJC]

Thank you! That makes sense and helps me better understand what needs to happen.

I can stop derailing @knic’s thread now I called my coach last night all frustrated and unsure of what to do with the horse for the next 10 days since vet wants horse working, but working him with bad angles also seems like a bad idea. While talking to her, I realized the change in the last year is probably because she used to be the one standing with my horse while he got his feet done. Now it’s me (who was previously not very engaged with farrier) or another boarder. Lesson learned.

Coach called and scolded farrier for not taking the time to do the quality work he’s capable of and he took another look at the x-rays while talking to her. Now he’s coming this week to take off toe and put on leather pads with the shoes. I slept well last night.

Now to start the journey to learn all about feet so this never happens again.

[Lunabear1988]

I’ve heard of this happening before and gosh that’s soooo frustrating.

For the last few years, I’ve just gotten farrier recommendations from my vet so that whoever I use has a good relationship with her. It makes life easier for me.

[knic]

No worries! It’s interesting to follow the different horses and approaches. Please come back and update how it goes!

[RJC]

Absolutely will. I plan on having radiographs done again at fall shots to check out progress.

[knic]

@Ottbaxel any update on your horse now that it’s been a couple weeks?

[Ottbaxel]

Unfortunately not a positive one. He’s completely unrideable - I took new rads post new shoeing, and there was hardly any difference. His LH was fixed by one degree, and his RH angle didn’t appear to have changed at all (but that rad was iffy since he was trying to kick and my vet didn’t have a hand to help them steady him). My vet took another look at him under saddle afterwards and he was lame LH. They want to do a bone scan, but I can’t afford it.

I am contemplating either doing an ultrasound to check for any suspensory issues that could be exacerbated by the NPA problems, or just saying screw it and not doing anything further other than continuing to work on his shoeing. Either way though, I’m giving him time off and only doing super minimal in-hand work with him. He hasn’t been ridden (aside from the day my vet wanted to see him go) in weeks.

[knic]

Sorry to hear that

[Ottbaxel]

@knic

Sorry to hear that

Thanks…I am hoping a little time off and continuing to take more of his toe off every trim will eventually get him comfortable again. Very disheartening though!

[IndysMom]

My 20 yo all around western horse is npa and has been for all his life. He’s also a rope walker who twists his foot as at pushes off. Yes, he’s sound and except for a couple of weird things has always been sound. He has had hock injections in the past, but not every year. He wears bar shoes behind.

On a recent weird problem we had to xray his right hind foot. The vet remarked on the npa and then shrugged and said “well, that’s just how he’s built “. So, it’s not always an unmanageable issue.

[skipollo]

Okay this is kind of a long one but a good/informational one…

My horse had a history of being uncomfortable in the hind end. We tried roughly 92873498 things, including injecting almost every joint he has with mixed results. It was seasonal, he was much worse in the winter and fine in the summer. We ended up xraying his hinds, and he was NPA behind. We put steel with 3deg rim wedge pads on him, and he was a lot more comfortable by the next day. I thought we found “the thing” and were in the clear, and for a while we were.

What I didn’t know was the wedge rim pad, while it did fix his angles, was also sending him into caudal failure over time. Peripheral loading of the hinds, lots of heel pressure, internal/central structures were basically “collapsing” (sinking down), and a few years into this, he started having a LOT of all-over discomfort. We did lower extremity joints, entire spine, retested for Lyme, and many $$$$ later we still had no answers. He was more miserable than before, like trotting over poles in February would mentally blow him up.

In my endless quest to find “the thing” I came across a farrier FB page that posted a lot of information about frog support and caudal failure. He was a big proponent of the 3D mesh frog support pads for horses in caudal failure/NPA (pads are by Derek Poupard in the UK). I sent the info to my farrier, not fully sold on the idea, just to get his thoughts. He said sure we could try them.

When I tell you in 24 hours I had a new horse, I am not kidding. He wasn’t guarding his hind end anymore, he wasn’t mysteriously sore all over in the hind, he could W/T/C/jump like a civilized boy. He’s always been kind of a worrisome anxious boy, and that all completely left him within the first day. Anxiety about turnout time? Gone. We finally found “the thing” that had been plaguing him for all those years. It took a long time and a metric ton of $$, but we finally found it. That’s why I’m sharing this info now so hopefully others don’t make the same mistakes I did. Wedges fix angles, but they can cause other problems that will send your horse into a seemingly unmanageable pain spiral.

This is what they look like. This is the 3D half mesh with 3deg wedge and DIM. It provides the wedge (angle correction) he needs while also providing frog support to take the load off the outer rim of his feet/his heels, and the central structures are being stimulated/supported so they aren’t sinking/collapsing.

So TL;DR, if I was looking to correct NPA, I’d go for these pads. They’ll help fix angles while also supporting the rest of the foot, and you’ll avoid caudal failure. They’re not expensive–they’re about $30/pair including shipping. Compared to what I was spending trying to find “the thing” $30 is nothing.

I hope this helps!