24/4/17 Make the most of what you've got!

I think having a horse who has had a condition like kissing spines really opens your eyes and makes you much more aware of their physical and mental needs, potential issues and frailties and how important it is to do everything you can to keep them in the best possible condition in order to make the most of them.
Though rehabbing Jack from Kissing spines surgery 2 years ago and then his Palmer Annular Ligament injury last I have become acutely aware of all the factors which may affect him, I now give much more consideration to his fitness level, ground conditions, weather, warm up and cool down, inclines etc.  I also research far more into things like diet, supplements, alternative therapies, tack and the equipment I use.
I am much more critical and will assess things like conformation and gait far more closely.
It has made me appreciate and be far more careful about what I do with my horse and make sure I have done everything in my power to avoid any problems which are under my control like not Cantering/Galloping on hard ground, being sure he is fit enough, regular checks of saddle, teeth etc, keeping his weight down, soaking hay.....the list goes on and on!
Of course as much as you do your best to keep them safe and healthy there are things that are out of our control and there is not much you can do about it once they are out in the field playing the fool with their friends!
It would seem this is what Jack has been doing lately, the vet wanted me to ideally box rest him for 2 weeks following his xrays last week but as we had no diagnosis I said no, I wouldn't put him though it unless I knew for sure it was the right thing to do.  I also said as he is nice and quiet in the field and doesn't mess about or run around as long as he goes out everyday he would be fine and getting rest.  Just to prove me wrong Jack galloped off down the field Saturday night and again Sunday night when I put him out!  As being kept in during the day on his own and not doing any work seemed to be winding him up I decided it would be better to leave him out 24/7.  The grass is well eaten down now so I wasn't so worried about his weight.  He then must have been messing about or upsetting one of him field mates because he came in with a cut and fat knee Tuesday having received a good boot to his already bad leg!  Seriously Jack could you cause anymore grief!?!
This horse needs to work, he just gets himself in so much bother when he isn't occupied!  At the moment because he is board when he is tied up on the yard he thinks is hilarious to get hold of anything he can reach and throw it about, untie himself and go off for a walk! 
Anyway, I cleaned up the cut and cold hosed the knee to try to bring the swelling down, fortunately it doesn't seem too bad.  It's hard to say if he is any better for the rest so far as the bute he is on twice a day will be masking any pain but I will be trying him Wednesday afternoon to see how he looks and giving the vet a ring to update them and see what they say to do next.  He does seem sound at the moment but the swelling is still around the fetlock so I'm not convinced whatever it is is actually any better but I will wait and see.  Obviously it will be clearer once he finishes the bute.

With Jack out of action lately I have been busying myself riding friends horses when I can and was lucky enough to jump my best friend Lucy's lovely pony Jay at the weekend.  He really is a cracking pony, very different to Jack, and he loves to jump!  Lucy hired a big nearby indoor school with a full set of show jumps and fillers as the ménage at her livery yard is not great, the surface gets very deep and its quite small.  We hacked up to the ménage and wow the place was breath taking!  There was an immaculate drive flanked by manicured lawns leading up to a huge house.  When you reached the top of the drive you took a right and went through a gate into the yard, the stables and 20 x 60m ménage were all housed in a huge barn complete with wash down box, hot horse shower, solarium etc it was beautiful!  It was also so neat and tidy and quiet!  Having something like that at home would just be the ultimate dream!  Anyway back to reality, while I warmed up Jay Lucy set us up some jumps.  Jay was quite strong but very settled to say he had only been in the ménage once before.  Jumping the warm up cross pole he was very keen and really taking a hold.  I did wonder if he needed something a bit stronger than a snaffle as he towed me round!  Once we started stringing a few jumps together he was better after the fence but was still really pulling us in the last few strides and getting himself a bit deep to the jumps.  We both felt that the jumps were just too small and he wasn't giving them enough respect so while I gave him a rest and a long rein Lucy put a couple of the jumps up. They were now around 80cm and with fillers under too gave him something to back him off a bit and wait, it worked a treat and he jumped beautifully hitting the right spot and clearing the jumps with ease.  We then put them up again and finished buy jumping a decent 95cm fence the biggest Jay has ever jumped - clever boy, he waited, sat up and then flew with his little ginger ears pricked, a great note to finish on a real high!!

I've also been riding one of the horses on the yard who is very different again, she's a very hot little mare who has a high head carriage, gets very tight and fast and is very sharp!  Sooo different to Jack!!  I've had a couple of schooling sessions on her helping her to relax and take the contact more forward and down and to step forward in walk rather than jog, by the end of the 2nd session I felt she had made some good improvements despite nearly decking me when a duck flew out of the ditch next to the ménage just as we were passing.  Using lots of changes of direction and small circles during/straight after the downward transition she was doing much clearer trot to walk transitions with hardly a jog in sight so we definitely made progress!  She is shortly going to be sold but hopefully being ridden by someone new a few times will help when potential owners come to try her.  When she is relaxed and calm she has lovely paces and is very comfortable to ride.

I'm enjoying riding different horses and it is doing my riding the world of good but I cant wait to get back on my number 1 boy!  Hopefully he is sound at the end of the rest and bute and I can start to bring him back into work.

I've also been busying myself with lots of mundane jobs with the spare time I've currently got, my stable and rubber mats have been scrubbed, tack all cleaned, brushes washed, rugs sorted etc!  All rather boring but its nice to get these jobs done that are usually neglected! 

12/4/17 X-rays

I had been looking forward to Wednesday afternoon since the vet visit on Monday morning hoping that x-rays would give us the answer to Jacks current issue.
I got up extra early Wednesday morning in order to get Jack in before starting work an hour early to enable me to finish in time for the vet visit at 3.15pm!  It was a bit of a rush but I made it!  As usual the vet wasn't on time so while I waited I set about mucking out, filling hay-nets and water buckets and then gave Jack a good brush. 
When the vet arrived we started by trotting Jack up again just to be sure there was no change from when he had seen him Monday, which there wasn't.  Next he asked if it would be ok to block out just the coffin joint and see if this made any difference before carrying out the x-rays.  I agreed and he set about blocking out the coffin joint, however Jack did NOT like this one bit and put up quite a fight breaking 3 needles and throwing me across the stable numerous times as I tried in vain to hold up the other leg in an attempt to assist and keep him still.  He was clearly not going to stand quietly and let the vet get a needle into the joint, even with a humane twitch, so we made the decision to abandon that idea and just do the x-rays.
Unfortunately by this point Jack was pretty agitated and would not even stand still for the x-rays so he had to be sedated to get them done.  Once he was safely in the land of nod we were able to get images of both front legs from the fetlock down and from front, side and back.  The vet took images of the good leg too for comparison.

X-ray image of the fetlock                                  Jack on the blocks

Once he had taken good images of all angles and both legs he had a thorough look at them and then showed me.  Sadly it was not the news I wanted to hear....there was absolutely nothing so see on any of them!!  All the bones and joints looked perfectly healthy, no chips, no fuzzy edges, no whitening, no dark areas just plain old healthy joints and bones.  Now I know this is good news in a way but I really, really, really wanted answers and sadly we didn't get any, not even a hint of what might be going on.  The vet was as dismayed as me and after discussing the options the only thing he could really advise me was to give Jack bute, rest him and see how he is in a weeks time.  This all sounds horribly similar to last time :0(
As Jack was still under sedation the vet wanted to try the coffin joint block again so he got another needle and once again tried to get the needle into the front of the joint.  Well that woke Jack up and having broken another needle and nearly flatten us both we decided to knock that idea on the head again.
He did say he would take the x-ray images back to the office and look through them with the head vet to see if he could identify anything he may have missed but having seen them myself they were so clear I can't imagine that he will find anything different.  Still you never know!

He still feels the issue is not soft tissue and checking the ligaments and tendons again said they all felt smooth and normal.

If in 2 weeks times there is no improvement he did say they could perform an ultra sound or maybe even an MRI to see if that reveals anything but he doesn't feel this is worth doing at the moment as the lameness and response to nerve blocks do not point to ligament or tendon damage.

Feeling very deflated I popped Jack back out and went home to have a good old sob to my other half.  My poor horse doesn't deserve this, he's been though enough and it's time his luck changed.

I have kindly been offered other horses to ride while Jack is out of action which is nice but it's not quite the same, I want my boy back, he was doing so well! 

I discussed my management of Jack with the vet to see if he thought there was anything I could have done differently but he assured me I'm doing everything right and I was just incredibly bad luck.

He still feels confident Jack can make a full recovery despite not being able to pin point the issue so I will put my faith in them and hope for the best over the coming 2 weeks.

Please everyone keep your fingers crossed for Jack!

Yet more bad luck for Jack 10/4/17

Argh!  I am gutted to have to write this update but poor Jack is lame again :0(
It all started 10 days ago, following a gallop the night before (which went without issue) Jack came in a little bit unsound in his off fore (opposite leg to last time!).  He wasn't really lame and whilst it was concerning I wasn't too worried initially, there was no heat or swelling and no sign of injury.  Not wanting to jump to conclusions I decided I'd just give him a few days rest to see if there was any improvement, it was a Friday anyway and he had worked hard for the last few weeks so he had the weekend off.  He comes in during the day and is out at night anyway to keep him off too much of the spring grass that's coming through and stop him getting too porky!  As he seemed no better on the Monday I contacted my farrier, who was due to shoe him later that week, to see if he could fit us in any earlier.  He came on the Wednesday afternoon and removed the shoe with me watching on carefully, hoping to see an abscess was bubbling under the surface!  No such luck and the hoof looked perfectly healthy, Dave my farrier had a good look and found nothing and no reaction to hoof testers, he felt it was a joint.  So with anything simple like a hoof abscess ruled out (it never seems to be simple when it comes to Jack!) and no improvement in the lameness I rang the vets.  They were coming to the yard the following Monday 10th April for routine vaccinations anyway so I added Jack onto that visit.  I then set about clipping out his hairy legs to see if there was anything the feather was hiding.  I did notice a little swelling just above the fetlock so in addition to putting his magnetic back pad and hock boots on during the day I started cold hosing the leg and then bandaging while he was in.  Having booked the vet he then seemed to come sound on the Thursday and I gave him a little lunge in walk and trot in the ménage and on the concrete and he looked fine!  I didn't want to cancel the vet visit yet as when he injured his palmer annular ligament last autumn he had days were he looked sound and other days being lame so I decided I would ride him on the Friday but still get the vet to check him over on the Monday, even if he seems sound.  When I tried him on the Friday he felt fine in walk but still not sound in trot.  I also noticed that he seemed much more comfortable when he had been out over night, he was walking in from the field sound but in the afternoons when he has been stood in all day he is markedly worse.  The first few steps he takes when he comes out the stable are quite startling with him barely weight bearing and looks like he might have an abscess but within 3/4 steps he is walking almost normally. 
With the vet coming at 9am Monday morning I was at the farm at 6am to bring Jack in so that he would have been stood in for a few hours before they arrived and I could show the vet the lameness at its worse.
The Vet that came was the original vet that came out to Jack 3 years ago, diagnosed him with Kissing Spines and did the post op visits following his surgery so he knew jacks history pretty well and was very interested in how well his back has healed and what rehab I had done with him.
We discussed Jacks current issues and his recent Palmer annular ligament injury then the vet had a good look at the affected leg and hoof.  He then asked me to walk him out the stable and Jack demonstrated his dramatic lameness for the first couple of strides before walking it off and walking almost normally again.  The vet then watched me walk and trot him up in a straight line on hard ground and on a tight circle.  After this he suggested nerve blocks to narrow down the area affected.  He started at the bottom blocking out only the hoof to start with, this made no improvement so he went on to block from the fetlock down and this resulted in Jack trotted up sound.  Armed with this information plus the swelling of the fetlock and reaction to palpitation the vet feels the problem is in either the fetlock, pastern or coffin joint but x-rays would be needed to confirm this and identify the exact issue.  X-rays are booked in for 2 days time.  He is confident it is not another soft tissue injury.
Whilst I was pretty gutted the vet was very encouraging, he said Jack's back and near fore have both healed so well and I have rehabbed him fully from both successfully there is no reason to think at the moment that I cannot do the same again.  He commented how strong his back is now.  I asked him about the near fore and if he felt there were any remaining issues in that leg or if it was suffering from being put under additional strain now so soon after already having its own injury.  He advised that leg is fine now and showing no ill effects, if there was any issue in the near fore it would have shown up when he nerve blocked the off fore and it didn't so we can be confident that is fully healed and back to full, normal function.
I am now looking forward to Wednesday afternoon when we will get x-rays images taken and should know more about what we are dealing with and be able to formulate a plan to get Jack better.
Keeping everything crossed it's something that we can come back from fairly quickly.

Waiting for the Vet 10.4.17