Would You Buy A Horse With Kissing Spine

Treatment of Kissing Spines in Horses. How much would you pay for a horse with kissing spine. The majority of horses with kissing spine can return to work after following a veterinarian-recommended treatment plan. It is not something to be taken lightly.

What Does A Horse With Kissing Spine Look Like

The horse's current and future use. One guy had surgery done on his gelding's back before it even started having problems, while another woman had to retire her best mare when she suddenly started refusing to go in the box and bucking in the field. Thermography is also used by me in cases where I want to evaluate heat output which can correlate to inflammation. You may be wondering why I would pay $1 million for a horse with kissing spine.

Kissing Spine In Racehorses

First, not every horse with spinous process impingement on X-ray shows acute back pain. Many horses can have a very successful career with a radiographic diagnosis of overriding dorsal spinous processes. You'd be wise to include back stretching and abdominal strengthening exercises in your training routine, and pay close attention to saddle fit when purchasing a horse with radiographic evidence of close or overriding dorsal spinous processes. I am just wondering what this does to a horse's sellability? Kissing Spine Disease - Dorsal Spinous Impingement. The underlying cause of kissing spines is still largely unknown. "If it is four or more spaces it is a minimum of 90 days of rest and then more spaces than that at least four months. Depending on the duration of the problem, his back may be poorly muscled, but this can also be seen in horses without back pain. Again Physical Therapy should be considered the essential component for management of this condition. Using exercises that help to build core strength and ones that allow the back to lift are the main concepts. The surgeon uses a very small chisel to divide the interspinous ligament in half. The availability of certain treatments in the area. Negative associations between ridden exercise and lameness may also cause your horse to resent being tacked up, girthed or mounted, despite having no primary back problems.

Would You Buy A Horse With Kissing Spine In Blox Fruit

The most important concept is that regardless of the treatment, physical therapy is particularly integral to a successful outcome. BHW Product Research Forum. If your vet identifies overriding dorsal spinous processes on a radiograph, they're likely to suggest additional diagnostic tests such as nuclear scintigraphy or "bone scan" (your horse receives an injection into the blood stream with a radioactive substance that's detected with a special camera in areas of active inflammation), or diagnostic blocks (a local anesthetic is injected into the area in question to see whether symptoms disappear when pain is eliminated). Feeling inspired but without access to an equine physical therapist in my area, I decided to buy the self-guided "A Course in Lungeing" from Babette Teschen. 20% of horses have a condition called kissing spine.

Would You Buy A Horse With Kissing Spine Images

Horse Nation writer Katelin Parsons reflects on her experience with kissing spines surgery and shares what she's learned since having her horse undergo the procedure. Even if kissing spines are detected, it's important to remember that they don't always cause pain, so they may not be the source of the problem. In one large-scale study, 55% of horses had radiographic evidence of kissing spine, while only 5% had thoracolumbar pain. "It is usually a happy ending for both the horse and the owner. "

Would You Buy A Horse With Kissing Seine.Fr

The only reliable way to do this is to inject local anaesthetic around the problem vertebrae and assess your horse when ridden afterwards. That said, it should not be undertaken on a horse simply because overriding dorsal spinous processes have been identified on radiographs. However, portable X-ray machines often struggle to generate enough power to image anything below the very tops of the spinous processes due to the thickness of the surrounding muscle, so your horse may have to have the X-rays taken in a hospital environment. Horses are most commonly diagnosed around 5 to 10 years of age, but younger and older horses can develop it, too. The following two pictures demonstrate a more normal back on the left compared to the one on the right with more inflammation in the saddle (thoracic) area as well as over the hips (sacro-iliac) areas. Let's stop horsing around and get to what causes kissing spine in horses. Good conformation for the prevention of equine kissing spine in horses looks like: - A neck that is one and a half times the length of their head. In any case, a true diagnosis of kissing spine as the underlying cause of symptoms is considered a "multimodal" diagnosis requiring more than one positive test to be confirmed. The next picture is of an abnormal spine radiograph which clearly depicts kissing spines. This means it takes more than just a picture to determine whether overriding dorsal spinous processes you see on a radiograph are truly the cause of your horse's problems. I spent a month just walking Monkey on the lunge line and stopping him to reward small improvements. Horse Anatomy: A Coloring Atlas, 2nd Edition, by Robert A. Kainer.

Kissing spines have also been observed in the lumbar vertebrae, but this is less common. Faster down payment for a house would be great but if not he'll have a place in my trailer until he no longer wants to go. In a review of medical and surgical treatment for back pain, 42% of horses resolved the pain with medical therapy and 95% resolved with interspinous ligament desmotomy surgery. Is kissing spines the problem? Kissing spines typically occur in the last few thoracic vertebrae—right where a saddle and rider would sit along the horse's back. If everything looks good, we increase the time on the underwater treadmill and they will also start on our equiciser for 15 minutes and we will gradually increase the time and level of work. Some horses may require special care because of their age or medical conditions; others could be too wild and need training first. 1980 Oct;12(4):197-210. I've reduced my gelding significantly to factor in the surgery but still have people baulking at the surgery.

Other diagnostic modalities your veterinarian might use include nuclear scintigraphy (bone scan), ultrasonography, and the injection of local anesthetic around the suspected painful spinous processes. Educate, educate, and educate. I thought it would be easier to choose surgery over changing my entire exercise and management program, but regardless of whether or not I chose surgery, my methods needed to change. In fact, some cases of kissing spine are found accidentally while investigating other issues in asymptomatic horses. These studies emphasize that X-ray findings of close or overriding dorsal spines alone does not mean that they are a direct cause of pain or poor performance. Plenty of professionals have tried to answer this question in the name of helping prevent our horses from experiencing the pain of equine kissing spine in horses. I remember when I thought that my horse would be back under saddle within three months of surgery. Conformation, trauma, etc.?

When it comes to kissing spine horses, you need to have specific equipment to ensure your safety and the horses. Conformation problems with an equine kissing spine in horses include: - Too-narrow chest. That may be part of the reason why so many barrel horses are diagnosed with kissing spines. It is, however, a bloody surgery due to the vascular location of the area to be cut. Over the years I have treated numerous horses with Shockwave Therapy (SWT) and have also found this effective; in fact, for some horses the benefits are about the same as injections. Each vertebra has a bony prominence that sticks up—the spinous process. Though the numbers have not yet been backed by clinical study, Honnas predicts 20 to 30 percent of horses have some sort of kissing spine. After performing multiple diagnostic tests with no clear answer, Honnas decided to x-ray the horses back. Prisk, A. J. and Garcia-Lopez, J. M. Long-term prognosis for return to athletic function after interspinous ligament desmotomy for treatment of impinging and overriding dorsal spinous processes in horses: 71 cases (2012–2017). Personally, I think you have the horse priced a little high BUT if the horse can pass a prepurchase exam maybe you are close.

Therapeutic ultrasound. This surgery can be performed with your horse standing or lying on its side. I have heard a variety of complaints from the riders and trainers over the years associated with this condition, the most common one relates to behavior-training issues. Most of the horses are sent home the next day to rehabilitate at home where they start with hand walking for the first 4 weeks, followed by a period of lunging and turn-out in the 2nd month and if there is appropriate improvement when re-radiographed at 8 weeks they are started back under saddle. There are a lot of beautiful horses out there that don't have KS. Horses with this condition can experience pain for the following reasons: - The bony dorsal spinous processes grinding against each other. The maintenance to keep their back strong, at least for my guy is long and I believe I am doing everything right but it required dedication. Fortunately this horse, a Hunter/Jumper, responded well to medical management. In order to understand the issues behind DSP impingement you have to understand a few anatomical factors. Reduce inflammation. In addition some of the muscles located on the topside of the back called the epaxials can have an important role here. The next most important thing? Next, the vet performs a complete physical examination of the horse that includes hands-on palpation of the entire body, including the back.

Sat, 06 Jul 2024 05:27:50 +0000