Last night I sat on Jimmy to see how he's feeling after I let him play in the round pen a little while.
He sucked. He's no better whatsoever. The shoes make no difference. The surgery made no difference, the limestone turn out isn't making a difference. Nothing makes a difference. I literally SAT on him, and he started flaring his nostrils and breathing heavy - panting - from the pain. He walks sound with me on him, but absolutely no trotting whatsoever. He just can't handle it. For the first time, another boarder was there riding while I was on him. I have a feeling the general consensus of me at the barn is that I am crazy and overprotective of Jimmy, because he's basically bubble-wrapped at all times. Now it's a fact that I'm not crazy. I really have an extremely ill horse.
Enjoy your weekend, everyone. Tomorrow is Pepe. Hooray for something to look forward to. The waiting game with Jimmy continues.
6 comments:
Could you take him for evaluation at the Kendall Road clinic or U. Wisc. clinic? They're both very good and you could determine what is really going on.
Dr. John told me the next step would be a full body scan at a clinic, but that just isn't in the cards. Time is all I have left to give him.
What about having a chiropractic specialist look at him, also considering some endocrine things that can cause whole-body pain (insulin resistance comes to mind, but thyroid can also cause these problems), and just having his legs looked at once you've addressed the first two?
Dr. John is also a chiro & he's done work on him - we also did bloodwork on him and all of his levels are completely normal. The frustrating thing is all the tests and diagnostic work shows that it's his feet. But his feet aren't getting any better.
From what you say, it sounds like he's possibly insulin resistant, which can lead to both foot soreness and whole body soreness. IR can happen without the traditional fat/cresty horse appearance - in fact some horses with poor weight maintenance are IR. We've had very good luck with a chromium/magnesium/selenium/vitamin E supplement - the chromium is the critical thing - that's prepared by our chiropractor/vet, who's also an endocrine specialist. I believe there are also commercially available supplements that mimic this. There is no reliable blood test for metabolic disorder/IR, and I've found that most vets really don't know very much about it. Good luck!
Yup, everything I researched in January told me the same, but all tests prove negative. And the beat goes on.
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