For the past few months, I couldn’t bring myself to post here about Kasane. Her injury on her front right leg is serious and more complicated than we originally thought. It wasn’t just her front right fetlock that had arthritis, there were other things going on that had been highlighted in the bone scan done in early December.

Because the joint injection did not completely resolve Kasane’s lameness, the vets did additional investigation. The next step after the bone scan was either to do an MRI (ouch! expensive!) or to use that money towards treatment. I chose the latter.

The diagnosis for her front right leg turned out to be an injury to the proximal suspensory ligament where it attaches to the canon bone. Recovery time is 8-12 months, with the first month or two in stall rest followed by small paddock turnout. She has to be ridden or walked for 15-20 minutes 3-5 times per week.

The prognosis for horses with this type of injury is not good: 60-65% of horses with similar injuries do not return to the level of work they were in prior to the injury.

This all happened back in late December and early January. Initially, I was stunned. It felt like every time the vet came out, there was no improvement in Kasane’s condition. I hate it for her. She is so good with everything. So patient and trusting and I’m putting her through all of these tests and she does it. We were getting ready for a horse show just before this injury happened. We were riding so well — the most advanced stuff I’d ever ridden. It was amazing. It felt like we were on the brink of being able to do anything. And then this. And no idea if I’d get my girl back in full form or if we would be resigned to trail rides at the walk.

Worrying over what might or might not happen wasn’t going to help her. I couldn’t do anything except on focus on what I could to improve her chances so hopefully she will be one of the 35-40%.

I wanted to do something to help address the whole body issues, like her sacroiliac (SI) joint in her back. (The chiropractor was unable to complete an adjustment on Kasane’s back because she was in so much pain.) We added a few more treatments to the mix to try and help her. One of the ladies at my barn is an equine bodywork specialist. She uses massage and acupressure to help treat horses. I’d seen the good results she had with another boarder’s horse, so I was willing to give her a try. Kasane has weekly bodywork sessions. She’s also on a Devil’s Claw and Yucca supplement to help with pain management.

The vet suggested using shockwave treatment and Osphos (helps repair bone damage) to help her healing. We did the shockwave treatment first, with three treatments three weeks apart. Her lameness improved from a 1.5 (on a scale of 0-5, with 5 being the worst) to a .5-1. Minor improvement, but I’ll take it! These treatments finished up mid-March.

Next, Kasane had the Osphos injection in early April. Osphos has some potential side effects, like colic, so I wasn’t excited about putting her through it. I stayed with her for two hours to keep an eye on her. My good trooper thankfully didn’t have any side effects from it.

Our next checkup with the vet is May 10th. I am really hoping that the improvement continues. Of course, other things have happened that might impact that, but more on that in another post.

Just as I walked into the barn today, Kasane managed to get cast against the stall wall. Seriously cast—as in, she couldn’t push herself away from the wall to get up. She was on her left side against the stall wall partition with her front legs tucked underneath her. She kicked out with her back legs—and took out most of the boards in the stall wall.

She managed to cut up her back legs, thankfully most of them were only surface cuts. The worst one was the three inch cut cut high on the inside of her back right leg. It looked like it might need stitches.

The other two long cuts were on either side of her back left on both sides of the cannon bone. These were not major, just fur scraped off in six inch stripes.

The vet came out for an emergency vet call. No stitches needed on the deep cut and no residual splinters from the wall either. The cuts has to be washed several times per day with Vetricyn. The deeper wound has to be treated with triple antibiotic ointment. She’ll be on antibiotics for five days.

I’m glad it turned out to be nothing serious. But darn. If it isn’t one thing, it’s something else.

When Kasane was at the vet hospital earlier this month, the diagnostic tests indicated that she had issues in her front right fetlock, sacroiliac (SI) joint in her back, front left foot, and one of her hocks. The vet said to wait two weeks and then check her for soundness. That check was today and I am so happy to report that she looks much better. There is still a slight head bob with her front right, but it’s so much better than it was.

My vet was very optimistic about the video and wants me to start riding Kasane again with a two-week rehabilitation plan. Yay! We’re going to start with 15 minutes of walk. Every third day, we’ll add another 5 minutes, up to 30 minutes of walking. At 30 minutes of walking, we’ll add in 5 minutes of trotting.

I’m going to keep an eye on Kasane and will take a video periodically to check her progress.

What happens whenever you go to the hospital? You come home with a cold. It appears that Kasane may have done just that. On Saturday, I found a great wad of yellow snot on the wall of Kasane’s stall. She hadn’t been in the stall that long, so I thought maybe someone else had used her stall.

Nope. No such luck. Today, the barn called and said that Kasane had white snot in both nostrils. She’s been eating and drinking okay. She seems to be acting normal. She greeted me and was happy to have her apple on Sunday when I was at the barn. No change in attitude that indicates she is not feeling well.

We’re going to take her temperature tonight and see how she is when she comes in for dinner. Poor girl can’t get ahead. If she has a fever (and depending upon it’s severity), then we’ll give her a bute (horse aspirin) and call the vet in the morning.

Update: No fever tonight! Her temp was 99.4F, which is perfectly normal.

The bone scan showed that Kasane has issues in her front right fetlock, ilial sacral joint, back left hock, and in her neck. The vet did some additional tests by repeating two of the nerve blocks. The low four-point nerve block (which blocks the fetlock joint) almost completely resolved her lameness issue. Some lameness was still present, but it was greatly reduced.

The radiographs of her fetlock showed a boney spot on the point where one of the ligaments comes into the joint. The ligament was slightly irritated. There were also signs of degenerative joint disease (arthritis), which may or may not be related to her lameness. An ultrasound of her leg showed no problems with the suspensory tendon (yay!).

The next step would have been either to wait a week and then do a nerve block of the fetlock joint proper (which involves waiting a week and then a joint injection for the nerve block) or to go ahead and treat the joint with an injection of HA and steroids. I opted for the latter since there seemed to be enough evidence pointing to the fetlock joint as a potential issue.

Her discharge papers say to wait 5-7 days before checking her lameness. When we were leaving the vet school, the vet said to wait two weeks before we’d see full results. So. I’m going to wait two weeks before checking her for lameness. I don’t want to get my hopes up. I have a feeling we’re in this for the long haul.

The vet called me this morning from the vet school with an update on Kasane. She is doing well and has been getting the radioactive substance via IV. Everyone loves her because she is so well behaved and sweet. Proud of my girl.

I went to the vet school to see her during lunch. I missed her by the amount of time it took for me to return to the car to put the parking permit in the dash and come back. Her stall was empty and roped off with radioactive warnings.

It’s been almost six weeks and Kasane is still lame. My regular vet referred Kasane to the local vet school for additional diagnostics, including a possible bone scan.

The vet exam today showed that Kasane is lame on her front right (moderate, 3/5) and her back right (mild, 1/5). The lameness was more pronounced on the lunge line.

The vet school had a neat diagnostic tool for detecting lameness that uses motion detectors. During the lameness exam, three motion detectors were attached to Kasane at the poll (head), front right fetlock, and at the top of her croup. The motion sensors streamed data back to a tablet. The tablet then reported where she was lame and the severity of the lameness: moderate front right and mild back right. These findings are consistent with previous vet exams.

Because it’s been six weeks and we haven’t seen any improvement in Kasane’s lameness, I opted to go ahead with the bone scan. She will be kept at the hospital for three days, including tonight. Tomorrow, she will be given a radioactive substance that will highlight areas where there is bone remodeling. The bone scan will not show what is going on, rather it will provide a map of issues to investigate.

I hate to leave her at the hospital for so long, but we need to figure out what is going on so we can help her feel better. The bone scan results should be available on Friday morning.

Kasane is still lame, even after the chiropractic adjustment. She is moving much better on her hind quarters, but she still is off on her front right (indicated by a head-bob when she trots). During the initial lameness exam, the vet found an issue with the front right as well as the hind end. There was a swelling on the inside of her back right hock.

This swelling appears to have gone down on its own.

My regular vet came back out today to do a follow-up lameness exam with two nerve blocks. Nerve blocks are used to help diagnose the location that might be causing the lameness. If you block out the area that is hurting, then the lameness goes away. Today, Kasane had two nerve blocks done to check from her mid-cannon bone down and then from the bottom of the knee down. We don’t know if her lameness is caused by a tendon issue (like a suspensory tendon) or something else going on. The previous vet exam last week did a nerve block on her heel and fetlock joint. Both of those nerve blocks didn’t have any affect.

Unfortunately, neither nerve block had any impact on her lameness. She was the same before and after the nerve blocks. My vet is going to refer Kasane to the local vet school. It’s a very good school.

I’m not sure how I feel about taking her to the vet school. She doesn’t have anything life-threatening. I know she will be in good hands and we’ll hopefully have a treatment plan after their evaluation. It’s just the idea of returning to the vet hospital that fills me with dread.

The last time I was there was with Isis six years ago when she had her acute onset of EPM. The feeling of jitters comes from those memories, not from anything related to Kasane. Thankfully, Kasane has never had Isis’ barrage of issues and illnesses.

The other thing that kind of weirded me out was the job title. We’re going to see an orthopedic surgeon. Surgeon. Yikes. I had never considered that whatever is going on with her could require surgery. Must stop thinking about this before my writer-brain goes down a rabbit hole.

Kasane will be fine. We’ll figure out what is going on. The vet school will be a good thing because we will have more tools to be able to help Kasane, and that’s what matters. Making her better.

The chiropractor said to check Kasane’s lameness on her front right leg a week after her adjustment on November 15th. I have very carefully had Kasane on rest: no riding, no rambunctious mornings. She’s been very good about it. We didn’t have a small paddock to turn her out in right now because of two other horses recovering from lameness issues. Unfortunately, there isn’t much of a change in her front leg lameness. The good news is that her rear end no longer has the waddle.

I took two videos to check her lameness four days apart.

Here’s the baseline video from earlier this month:

This video was taken one week after her adjustment. Rear-end waddle is gone but the front right lameness is still present.

The last video was taken 10 days after her adjustment, with the same lameness on the front right. It’s slightly more pronounced in this video since she had been goofing off before the video. That’s what I get for trying to lunge her by myself while taking video.

The vet is going to come back out next week for further evaluation.

The chiropractor adjusted Kasane today. She was seriously out of whack. Her sacroiliac joint (SI joint) was rotated up on one side and down on the opposite side, which caused her to have waddle when she walked or trotted.

We’re hoping that the correction in the back was causing the lameness in her front right.

Kasane seemed to feel a lot better after her adjustment. She has 72 hours off and then I’ll check her again to see if there is any improvement in her lameness.

I’m so glad that we had the chiropractor evaluate Kasane. Next appointment is in a month to see how the adjustments are holding.

Today, I had planned to ride Kasane and do a little trot work. We have been just walking up and down hills on the trails to help her recover from the windpuffs (swellings above the fetlock joint). She has had them for a while, but the one on her back right leg was about 20% larger than the one on her right. The vet had told me to give her bute for 3-5 days, keep her up at night, put standing wraps on her back legs, and limit our rides to 20-30 minutes of mostly walking.

When I went out tonight, she felt off a little at the walk. It wasn’t anything that seemed consistent. It was just not right. She trotted off immediately when I asked her to. Periodically her gait didn’t sound even. A trotting horse has a steady two-beat rhythm. Her footfalls didn’t sound quite right, but not all of the time. She normally engages her hind end and lifts her back when we trot. Instead, she was heavy on the forehand and felt like she was leaning on the reins.

My friend at the barn noted that Kasane didn’t seem to be moving right. The second I gave Kasane a loose rein and we trotted off, her head started bobbing slightly. She was lame. I got off immediately and took the video below.

Her gait is so strange: a waddle in the back and like it is a lot of extra work to move her front right leg forward. It is very strange.

The barn manager noted that Kasane had been cutting up in the field most mornings. it’s been cold and she gets excited when she knows it’s meal time. She’ll run, buck, do sliding stops, and other things that aren’t good on joints that need to heal.

The tricky thing with lameness is do you leave the horse up and take a chance that they might get stiff or do you turn them out and hope they don’t further injure themselves. I turned Kasane out, hoping that she would not be stupid in the morning.