OMG yes that helps. THANK YOU for posting your experience. I’m about to put those on my mare this next cycle (next week!) and I truly hope it becomes the last puzzle piece.
Fingers crossed!
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I’ve never heard a vet say that NPA is a “how a horse is built” issue that doesn’t need to be addressed. Is he built in a super unusual way?
I have been told that by several vets. Fixing the NPA has proved that it WAS an issue, so YMMV.
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We did frog support pads with the 3 degree wedge on Tuesday. Will say, my horse seemed a little more sore and grumpy last night but trying not to worry too much (yet!) since that is a big change he has to adjust to.
I did 3d pads on my mare for 9+ months. They made no difference to the NPA (she’s zero, not negative, fwiw), and made her do this weird buckling at the fetlock thing behind. Once the shoes got pulled it immediately stopped.
It’s been my experience that sometimes it’s better to shoe a horse the way he’s built than to try and “fix” him. The “fixing” causes more problems than it solves.
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Agreed. Any attempts to fix my Old Man’s ridiculously low heels behind lamed the absolute snot out of him.
Not the case for every horse, worth a try to fix, but sometimes throwing in the towel is the answer
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All true, but you don’t know until you try. It’s the one final thing I haven’t tried on my mare. At this point I will try almost anything… I’m not ready to throw in the towel yet.
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I’ve been on the fence with this issue for years. My mare’s natural stance is a neutral plantar angle. She’s a lovely mover and doesn’t have any of the symptoms of NPA, so I’ve made no attempts to alter the angle so far. But constantly question whether that’s the right thing to do.
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My horse is not happy and more sore on the side that is more negative.
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@skipollo You may have said it already and I missed it, but what degree NPA was your guy? I just sent a pic of these to my farrier to see what he thinks. My guy isn’t rideable right now (presumably because of the NPA) so I don’t really see a downside in trying these…not like it can make him less rideable when I’m already not riding lol!
Tbh I can’t remember, this was in maybe 2019? I know it wasn’t severe, but it was enough to make him really uncomfortable.
The 3D pads come in a flat version and a 3deg version if that helps.
Which version did you use? I am thinking about doing the 3deg version and seeing what that does for him.
Mine wasn’t night and day but I’ve seen notable improvement over the last 10 weeks. Mine was negative to -1. Structurally she’s not well built behind with joint changes so I think the NPA hit her hard and also took her a bit to muscularly recover from because she doesn’t really have a solid foundation to start.
My horse is in the 3deg version.
It’s been a week in the 3 degree wedge frog pads and my horse is still pretty sore. So unfortunately not a magic turnaround like skipollo. But too early to call it a failed experiment, I have some bodywork scheduled and will put him on methocarb for a bit to see if the pain calms down once he has more time to adjust.
I don’t remember if you’ve done this already, but if his alignment is better in the wedges, but his hind end and back muscles are all sore and angry, he might need some relief in the muscles/SI to better adjust to the pads and stop feeling sore. My boy feels GREAT right now after his SI and HQ muscle injections, but I can easily see why doing those same treatments without addressing the feet wouldn’t work. I can also see why doing them right as the angles in the feet get fixed would be different.
I may do another round of mesotherapy but will give it a little time first bc $$$
I totally, deeply, fully understand that.
In the meantime, it’s free but boring to practice wither-rocking. Gently use your hand to sway his withers back and forth (think about just moving them half an inch side to side- very small movement). If he is stiff and hard to sway, stay even smaller and lighter until he starts to breathe. 10 mins of doing this a day can make a marked improvement for back pain (and you can work the different bones up and down his withers to see what he likes the best). You know it’s working if he starts to sigh, lick and chew, yawn, and/or drop his head. If he’s a little unsure but blinking, I would ease up but keep going. It can take a while when you start doing this for them to get into it. You can do the same thing on the hind end using the SI as a sway point, but I generally have less success with this than the withers. He can’t be eating while you do this.
When they get really into it, they walk off kind of drunk afterwards. My saddle fitter/body worker taught me this for my former mare’s back pain
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Well, here’s my newest update!
After speaking with my current farrier and pondering the wedge frog pads, my vet gave me a call and said she actually had a farrier that she had worked with before, in the area to do another horse. He came today while I was at work, and my vet happened to be there at the time. They spoke on what to do with his feet and decided to try something different - he took off much more toe, and I think they put heart bars on but I have yet to see them myself and it was difficult to hear over the phone but I trust what my vet thinks.
My guy was so sore that he was kicking at this new farrier. Thankfully, my vet is a good friend of mine and found my ace to give it to him to make things easier. I feel awful! I had told this new farrier that at his last appointment, he was stiff and reluctant to hold up his hind legs but that I’ve been doing lots of stretches and handwalking with him in the meantime, so he should be better. He has never once kicked out during a shoeing before. I feel so bad for the both of them 
The other thing now though, is this horse is on the schedule with my regular farrier in the next week or two. I don’t know how to tell him that I had a different farrier do him once to see how he’ll do with that. I think I’ll just say it was a spur of the moment thing and the other guy was already in the area so he swung by to take a look. I just don’t want my current farrier to think that my vet is intentionally trying to get me to switch to someone else, when in reality we’re just trying to do whatever we can at the moment to get him comfortable. I’m stressed!
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