Montanas_Girl
Dec. 31, 2009, 12:41 PM
I will have had my guy for ten years this spring. For nine years, he was as sound as they come. We injected his hocks a couple of times and that was it as far as maintenance goes.
He is a sensitive, sometimes difficult horse, and it took us seven or eight years to really get going together (that whole "green on green" thing). In December '08 we moved up to the 3' hunters (he was 13 at the time) and things were going well.
At a show the first week of March '09 (horse now 14 yrs. old) he came up a bit off with some heat and swelling in his left front fetlock. With a couple of days off, he seemed fine. We thought maybe he'd just stung himself or something.
Two weeks later, the day after another show, he came in from the pasture three-legged lame with his left front swollen all the way up to the knee and his right front slightly swollen as well. The vet (at Hagyard's in Lexington) diagnosed cellulitis. We did five days of IV antibiotics followed by a course of oral antibiotics before the swelling went away completely and the skin condition (that looked like a bad chemical burn) that developed secondary to the swelling went away.
Horse was right as rain until we took him to another show in April. Again, significantly lame with some heat and swelling in the left front fetlock after he came home. Had a lameness specialist (this one from Rood & Riddle) out. Diagnosed with a large bone spur in the left front fetlock, right at the insertion point of the joint capsule. We injected the fetlock and moved the horse back down to the 2'6" hunters.
He did great until late September, when he started looking just slightly off now and then. Assuming it was the bone spur bothering him again, we injected the fetlock again at the first of October '09. This time, he only improved for about a week and a half before the lameness started coming back, again right after a (small, non-demanding) horse show. The left front fetlock started to swell dramatically again - at this point the horse was living in middle TN again and turned out 24/7, so we're not talking about simple stocking up.
So, back to the (excellent lameness specialist in middle TN) vet we go again in the middle of October. Horse was (naturally!) not visibly lame at the clinic. An ultrasound of the suspensory and SDFT/DDFT looked good. Vet was ready to call it just cellulitis again when I asked him to take a new set of x-rays to check on the bone spur situation. X-rays revealed that the "bone spur" is now an avulsion fracture of the end of the cannon bone at the fetlock joint. Similar to a sesamoid fracture in racehorses. Vet also suggested that there may be some collateral ligament damage as well due to the location of the fracture.
The vet recommended shockwave, but that is not in the budget at this time (I am an unemployed recent graduate and have now spent $2K+ in vet bills on this horse in 2009). So, we started on 90 days of stall rest and will go back to re-check in just a couple of weeks.
Thankfully, the horse is very sensible and is handling stall rest as well as any horse could. However, the horse also has RAO and has been struggling some with that during his confinement. I don't think that he's really getting any better. We have been keeping his leg wrapped 99% of the time, but on the occasions that I've had to leave it unwrapped overnight, it still looks like this the next day: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=32673316&l=4e720a9f78&id=52700902
I'm at a loss as to what to do next. If he were 5 or 10 years younger, I might feel differently, but he'll be 15 in the spring. At this point I'm wondering if it might not be best to just turn him out for six months to a year and see what we have. If he has retire, I have friends who would be willing to care for him very cheaply, so that is not an issue. I have a coming three year old to "replace" him as my show horse, so that isn't an issue either. But this is my heart horse, and I'm not sure I want to give up on him! What would you do?
Of course I'll discuss all this with the vet when we go back, but in the meantime I was hoping to get some input from you all. I'm just feeling very frustrated and depressed right now.
He is a sensitive, sometimes difficult horse, and it took us seven or eight years to really get going together (that whole "green on green" thing). In December '08 we moved up to the 3' hunters (he was 13 at the time) and things were going well.
At a show the first week of March '09 (horse now 14 yrs. old) he came up a bit off with some heat and swelling in his left front fetlock. With a couple of days off, he seemed fine. We thought maybe he'd just stung himself or something.
Two weeks later, the day after another show, he came in from the pasture three-legged lame with his left front swollen all the way up to the knee and his right front slightly swollen as well. The vet (at Hagyard's in Lexington) diagnosed cellulitis. We did five days of IV antibiotics followed by a course of oral antibiotics before the swelling went away completely and the skin condition (that looked like a bad chemical burn) that developed secondary to the swelling went away.
Horse was right as rain until we took him to another show in April. Again, significantly lame with some heat and swelling in the left front fetlock after he came home. Had a lameness specialist (this one from Rood & Riddle) out. Diagnosed with a large bone spur in the left front fetlock, right at the insertion point of the joint capsule. We injected the fetlock and moved the horse back down to the 2'6" hunters.
He did great until late September, when he started looking just slightly off now and then. Assuming it was the bone spur bothering him again, we injected the fetlock again at the first of October '09. This time, he only improved for about a week and a half before the lameness started coming back, again right after a (small, non-demanding) horse show. The left front fetlock started to swell dramatically again - at this point the horse was living in middle TN again and turned out 24/7, so we're not talking about simple stocking up.
So, back to the (excellent lameness specialist in middle TN) vet we go again in the middle of October. Horse was (naturally!) not visibly lame at the clinic. An ultrasound of the suspensory and SDFT/DDFT looked good. Vet was ready to call it just cellulitis again when I asked him to take a new set of x-rays to check on the bone spur situation. X-rays revealed that the "bone spur" is now an avulsion fracture of the end of the cannon bone at the fetlock joint. Similar to a sesamoid fracture in racehorses. Vet also suggested that there may be some collateral ligament damage as well due to the location of the fracture.
The vet recommended shockwave, but that is not in the budget at this time (I am an unemployed recent graduate and have now spent $2K+ in vet bills on this horse in 2009). So, we started on 90 days of stall rest and will go back to re-check in just a couple of weeks.
Thankfully, the horse is very sensible and is handling stall rest as well as any horse could. However, the horse also has RAO and has been struggling some with that during his confinement. I don't think that he's really getting any better. We have been keeping his leg wrapped 99% of the time, but on the occasions that I've had to leave it unwrapped overnight, it still looks like this the next day: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=32673316&l=4e720a9f78&id=52700902
I'm at a loss as to what to do next. If he were 5 or 10 years younger, I might feel differently, but he'll be 15 in the spring. At this point I'm wondering if it might not be best to just turn him out for six months to a year and see what we have. If he has retire, I have friends who would be willing to care for him very cheaply, so that is not an issue. I have a coming three year old to "replace" him as my show horse, so that isn't an issue either. But this is my heart horse, and I'm not sure I want to give up on him! What would you do?
Of course I'll discuss all this with the vet when we go back, but in the meantime I was hoping to get some input from you all. I'm just feeling very frustrated and depressed right now.