Equine Health Blog

If you are going to Horse of the Year 2010, why not drop into section2 site 22, we are situated around the international arena not too far from the dome.  This year Horsewell Equine Rehab has teamed up with Emma McMurray from Equine Performance Therapy and Debbie Prattley from AcuVet to offer you and your horse the total therapies package.  TREAT YOURSELF AND YOUR HORSE….  For the rider… we have massage, bowen and laser therapy for those muscles and joints, and for your horse we have bowen, massage, laser and acupuncture. Email, txt or call us to pre-book your appointment. Or just drop into our trade site…  See you thereHeidi

Having had a large quanity of horses to image in the first 6 months of operating my thermal imaging camera, there is one thing that has become apparent to me….  the necessity for a qualified vet report of the thermal images.

Let me explain… what appears “hot” is not always where the problem is, hot areas can be caused by a number of issues, the most common is an overuse of the area.  For example, if a horse has an ongoing ligament injury they will favour that leg and instead use the opposite leg to carry all the weight.  The un-affected leg will show up hot on thermography as it is doing all the work, the affected leg wil be unusually cold but when you look further there will be a small amount of heat very localised pointing to the initial injury site.  To the untrained eye, all you will see is the hot leg and completely miss the initial injury site.  As you can see this will be very dangerous as you will commence treatment on the wrong leg.  

I have been asked by my clients asto why I do not produce a report myself, to me the only person that is able to report on any type of imaging is a vet.  That is why I work with Dr Donna Harper from the US who writes a fromal report on all my images, her experience both as a vet and having spent years imaging animals is invaluable.  The accuracy at which she has identified initial injury sites is amazing, and for the professionalisim of my business I will not be tempted into “guessing” where an injury is.

Over the last month I have been busy imaging horses with my new thermography camera.  What an exciting time I’ve had, it has been extremely interesting to have a look at a horse from an equine therapists view and then to turn the camera on and see the areas that show up hot.  The one thing that has become apparent is that it is not always the areas that show up hot as being the problem areas.  For example, a horse that has heat in its left front leg and shoulder may infact be using that leg more to take weight off the right leg, the right leg maybe cold but when looking again at the images you might see an area in the tendon,knee or joint that is causing the horse to shift it weight onto the left leg.   This is the reason why I have a vet in the US who is reporting on my thermal images.  I have had a lot on enquires from owner/trainers who want to just take the images to their own vet.   Most vets will be able to see the hot spots but to correctly diagnose off the thermal images you need a vet that is experienced at reading the images.

Dr D Harper is one of only four DVM’s that is certified into the American Academy of thermography and has preformed extensive research into equine thermography.  The reports that I have got back so far have been extremely accurate and insightful, not to mention how helpful it has been to the owners and trainers.

Well I have had my Thermography camera now for over a month and needless to say my horses have been the guinea pigs andhave been very patient I must say!!

I had one horse that I have been having problems with fitting a saddle to and so decided to take a few images.  In the past the saddle has ever so slightly moved to one side but seemed to be fine on all my other horses.  So out with the camera and a few images later I can actually see how bad the situation is.  And I don’t think that I’ll be using that saddle on her for some time, as it is obviously causing some discomfort and more than I had realised.  Just looking a the image of the saddle you will see what I mean. Subsequently I have now imaged all my saddles (all 3 of them) on this horse and found the best one to use.  This took all day but a very successfull outcome. 

Equine Thermography is a imgaing modality that I have been interested in for a number of years now.  In july of 2007 I attended a veterinarian thermography course held in Roswell, New Mexico USA. 

The course was taken by Dr Donna L Harper who is an vet and an ABT Certified Veterinary Thermographer.  This course comfirmed the importance of thermography in the equine industry and I set about saving money to buy a infrared thermography camera.  After a few set back including a badly broken leg and then a wedding to pay for I have finally secured myself a camera.  And in Feb 2009 will begin imaging horses for prevention and detection of injuries as well as saddle fitting and monitoring rehabilitation of injuries.

I will try to add regular up dates to my blog with interesting case studies or unusual imgaes that maybe of interest.

Regards…….. Heidi

Back pain in horses is a very grey subject as there are not many diagnositic tools of use to the vet to detect injuries.  In my experience there are 2 types of back pain. 

1. Acute onset of back pain due to an injury.

2. Insidious onset of reduced performance.

Often the acute onset of back pain will be pick up by the rider, vet or therapist but the symptoms of poor performance could easily be missed.  Observation is the key to seeing a horse with a back problem.  Do not confuse back pain with Sacro-Iliac joint problems which I will write about another time.

Back pain can have a huge influence on gait and studies have showed that in over 30% of cases with postive back pain there will also be a secondary lameness aswell, making diagnosis even harder.  Things to look out for are:

• Poor development or asymetrical muscle development.  This can be observed by standing on a stool and look from behind your horse over its hind quaters and along its back.
• Abnormal promience  of the spinous processes of the Lumbar spine, these can either be raised, dipped or shifted sideways.
• An abnormal dip or sunken appearence between the Lumbar and Sacrual Spine, or a raised hump over the sacrual spine.
• Loss of wastage of muscle.

Signs that can be observed by riding or watching the horse in movement are:

• Horses may be come agitated.
• Plaiting of fore limbs at walk.
• Saddle may slip of when you are riding you might feel lop-sided or sitting crooked.
• The horse will not want to turn in small circles.
• Lateral movement either ridden or on a lead will be difficult.

Imaging modalities that are avaliable to vets are Ultrasound; this can be used to scan the facet joints in the spine to see if there are restrictions or degeneration.  X-rays can be taken of the Spinous process of the Thoracic (wither region) and the Lumbar spine providing the vet has a machine that can penetrate that area.  Nuclear Scintigraph can be used in conjunction with x-rays and Ultrasound and can be very helpful.  Thermography is another useful to tool to locate areas of inflammation in the spine.  Spinal anaylsis can be done by placing dots on the spinous processes and trying to flex the horse each way to observe a restriction. 

Treatment depends on the severity of the injury or degeneration.  Regular chiropractic treatment can aleviate or control back pain as to can other therapies such as Bowen, massage, laser, homeopathy, EMRT etc..  Certain herbs such as Devils claw and willow bark may suit some horses.  And it would deffinitley be of benefit to consult a trained professional in the above mentioned feilds.  There are some vets who can inject into the facet joints with good results and other forms of pharmaceuticals such as pentasan have had positive results in controlling back pain.

Different training techniques can have a hugely positive effect on back pain as to with correct saddle fitting.  Back pain in horses is more apparent than any rider/owner/trainer realises and is a subject that constantly needs to be researched. 

If you feel that your horse has a back problem then it is better to act now than to leave a horse to suffer in silence as so many do.

Hello                                                                                                                            

My name is Heidi Richardson, I am the founder of Horsewell Equine Rehab and have decided to start this blog. Every week I get emails from people with questions regarding injuries and therapies. So from now on I will be writing a fornightly blog on interesting topics for horse owners/trainers and riders. Having recently attended the AAEP vet conference in Colorado, which over 300 vets from around the world attended, I discovered that there are so many pieces of info that I have taken away from that conference that can be of value to trainers and riders. Over the next couple of months I will pick through my notes and add these insights to my blog. So check back for regular up dates.

Heidi