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| Discussion on Summersault... deep tissue/muscle bruising/arthritis? | |
| Author | Message |
| New Member: Stomperx |
Posted on Thursday, Apr 27, 2006 - 2:41 pm: Hi all...sorry this is so long.i have a 16 year old saddlebred, i adopted him almost 3 years ago. past history (that i know): late geld at 4-5 years of age, presumably for stud purposes, but he was extremely aggressive. he was trained/shown saddleseat/driving. he foundered aproximately 8 years ago, reason unknown. he had been in and out of 13-15 barns/owners by the time he was donated to a local rescue group 3 years ago. At that time, he was down in weight by 200 pounds. when i adopted him we did the vet exam, including xrays of his front feet. the rescue group had been told there was no rotation, but of course there was. his right front had 5 degree rotation and his left front had 15 degree rotation. he is also slightly club foot in his front left. my vet also warned that due to his past career, he was all but assured to have arthritis in his back legs, possibly his front. he had pads and "regular" steel shoes on his front, and because of the pads, he was very thrushy. he has been on joint supps and dac purple since i got him. we pulled his pads/shoes and gave his feet a chance to air out. he now wears regular aluminum shoes on his front, no pads, his back are bare. he gained weight, and is roughly a beautiful 950lbs now. conformation wise he is very near correct for a saddlebred. over the course of two years, the rotation in his right front is now zero, and his left has had major improvement (we xray yearly for changes). we ride dressage (or try to  i am still in introductory ). our routine has been roughly 20-30 minutes lunging w/t, then hour long work sessions. we would usually ride 5-6 days a week year round, with one of those times being a lesson. sometimes we would take a week off here and there. we have an indoor arena with deep sandy footing. (a boarding barn) when groomed consistantly, it is very nice for riding. but this past winter, the footing got very uneven, dry, deep in some places, shallow in others. in february, my guy decided to act like an idiot: while lunging to the left, he decided to break from a trot to canter, toss his head, buck and kick out at the exact same time he hit a deep area of sand. he tripped with his left front, landed on his chest, his neck bent completely to the right and his body flipped over with him landing almost flat on his back, but maybe a little more towards his right hip. he stood up and he seemed slightly disoriented, started hopping back towards the sound of my voice (i was near hysterical!) he finally stopped after about 7 hops back and just stood with his back legs splayed out to each side and his head hanging as low as possible. by this time i am already trying to get my vet on the phone.... get her answering service. i do a visual exam on him and find no blood, scrapes or any other outer signs of injury, and try my vet again. this time my horse responded to my voice, kinda shook himself out of his daze and walked the 4-5 foot distance between us and laid his head against my chest like he was comforting me. vet calls me back (this probably only takes ten minutes from the time he fell til my first actual contact with the vet. advice: take him back to his stall, keep an eye on him, since/if he seems ok, she will be out that evening. in his stall, i ran my hands over every inch of his body looking for any signs of injury, i finally notice that the upper white area around his left eye is bloody, and call the vet back. she was there within the hour. in the meantime, his personality, his carriage, his everything was back to 100% normal except his eye which the vet determined was minor, the capalaries had burst due to the sudden pressure of his fall, some antibiotic ointment until it cleared a few days later and that was fine. vet said give him a couple days off and try riding, see what happens. it seems we had gotten very lucky and escaped injury. two days later i did a very short seesion with him, we rode for about ten minutes w/t and he seemed off under saddle. (lunging for about 10 minutes before riding he was fine) the next day did an even shorter session, he didn't seem quite right, but nothing that could be pinpointed. gave him another 2 days off, tried lunging again and i didn't even force him to lunge for a full minute, he was off on his back right. my vet came back out, did another exam, and flex tests... when flex tests were done he showed only slight lameness on his back right (same result with flex test on the left, he was off on the right). we gave him a week off with 1g bute/daily. after this week, we did the slowly ease back to work thing... he seemed over the course of the next couple weeks to improve with only an off step here and there, his only resistance was making sharper right hand turns... he is/was willing to do anything i wanted, and in fact if you weren't familiar with how he normally moved, you wouldn't see anything wrong. my trainer did not, and she has watched him weekly for nearly 3 years. i have a friend who does sports massage therapy on horses, and she is using him as her project and to perfect her technique. (its free!) she gave him his first massage two weeks ago. 6 days later my farrier came out, and my horse objected to his back right being held up. (first time ever). two days later he seemed to move funny with his back right in his stall, i took him out on the lunge to see, and he was definitely off on that back right again. another massage that afternoon. because it was sunday, i waited til the following morning to call my vet. but sunday evening, i gave him a dose (1 oz/scoop) of arthriease with dinner. he got a second dose and a third with feeding the next day. then we stopped the arthriease because my vet was coming the next evening. she did the exam all over again, hoof testers, flex tests inside arena and i lunge him for her and no lameness whatsoever... i'm feeling like a fool, horse is putting on a show. so we go outside to firmer/harder footing. flex tests all over again.. no issues. lunge him, he sees a horse eating bicycle, and really lets go... big action trot, nice canter, some bucks for good measure! finally after he settled back down, he started to show a little lameness on his back right again, and FINALLY it was obvious for the vet to see and not just an over active imagination on moms fault. we discussed arthritis, legend, adequan, supps and arthriease. we had considered the legend after he first fell. we will be doing xrays next tuesday on all four legs. my vet is not overly concerned with his back legs, she says its a given with his past that he has arthritis in his hocks. she is more concerned with his front right carpus. on the flex test, when applying pressure to the joint he consistantly pulled away from her. he gave no response with his left. she says that horses that have arthritis in the front carpus, tend to trip more? posing greater risk to the rider. her opinion for his continuing soreness in regards to his back right: more than likely he has a deep tissue/muscle bruise from his fall in feb., and that these can take months to heal. we suspect that he either got cast in his stall, or while being an idiot in pasture had agravated it by running/bucking etc... i should add that i had not worked him that week. i guess my questions are: would the day and half of arthriease have help him enough that the day the vet came he was feeling good enough to put on a show? and if so, is it safe to use as a maintenace type med? when my vet was there, we also gave him his first injection of legend (IV) and he will have his next shot at the same time as his xrays. my vet said to go ahead and give him the arthiease if it seems to help, and he has had 3 more doses since then. i worked him for about ten minutes today in the round pen (2 days after first legend shot) i just wanted to see how he was moving... he didn't take a wrong step and was happy to go. what is your opinion on the arthritis in the front carpus (in general), the arthriease and the legend? i know you can't possibly do any kind of diagnosis, but would bruising be a plausible thought for his lameness? my vet says if you watch any horse's back end long enoughh, they all start to look funny... if he had an actual bone injury/break in his shoulders, withers or pelvic/hip area, wouldn't he give some kind of indication.... in fact the photo i am trying to attach was taken about a couple weeks after he fell. after researching the internet, reading through this site, i am paranoid and finding nightmare stories about injuries to horses. should i add adequan to the legend? if he continues to show soreness, i will probably arrange to transport him somewhere for xrays to his hips and back etc. my long term goals for him are primarily to keep him comfortable and painfree for as long as possible, he has suffered enough in his lifetime already. having said that, i'd be lieing if i said i wanted to retire him today. we ride in a plain snaffle, he willingly goes on the bit, likes contact, collects nice, is very responsive, moves off the leg nicely, he tracts very nice, and travels very straight. he adjusted from saddleseat to dressage very easily and seems to like it. thanks for patiently reading this. i will be awaiting your thought. 
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| Moderator: DrO |
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| New Member: Stomperx |
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| Moderator: DrO |
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| New Member: Stomperx |
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| Moderator: DrO |
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| New Member: Stomperx |
Posted on Saturday, May 6, 2006 - 7:53 am: I would attribute the improvement to bute and time, the rest is just likely to be expensive therapeutic window dressing.DrO lol, you called it! may 2, we were only able to xray his right legs, my vets machine died and we'll have to wait couple weeks for its replacement. the xray results are absolutely perfect. the films were diagnostic quality. she took every angle of his front carpus and fetlock, and his right hock. there are no signs of arthritis at all!!! my vet was very surprised, she would have bet big time he had arthritis. so while we have to wait to do his left, i'm am very very hopeful we'll get the same results. it has been a lot of money, between the vet visits, the legend and the xrays, but i think it was money well spent, i have the reassurace of knowing what shape his legs are in, and also the baseline views in case something comes up in the future. whatever the reason, maybe just time taken for healing and he just plain feels better, maybe cause its spring, maybe the legend does help his joints anyway.... he is strutting and carrying on... just beauty in motion. hes all cocky and full of himself. just a note to add to my original post in regards to his founder of 8 years ago: my vet got those xrays back out to get the measurement of his left foot (we didn't have the numbers before). his rotation has gone from 15 degrees to only 5 degrees!!!! i am very thrilled, happy and relieved to see his improvements!!!! and in regards to his founder, who knows? we were not going with a plan to do active corrective shoeing, we were just following his feet and letting them tell us what to do. but maybe in another couple of years his left foot will be back to zero degrees too...? look at my baby go!! one very very happy mom here!! Dr. O: you have a great web site here, and i'm glad i joined. Having all this info at my fingertips is great, and the fact that you respond to all questions is very nice and you are to be commended for a job well done. Thank you. 
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