A Leg Up
A Leg Up Back Injuries In Horses—Part II by Heather Smith Thomas
Treating A Back Problem The type of treatment used for a back problem depends upon the nature of the injury. Muscle or ligament strain would be treated differently than an arthritic condition with bony proliferative changes or erosive changes, according to Richard D. Mitchell, D.V.M. of Fairfield Equine Associates of Newtown, Conn.
much trauma and inflammation in the surrounding ligaments that the horse needs rest to let these structures heal a little. You may be looking at 30 to 90 days in which the horse needs a break from work.” In some instances, injections are also given between the spinous processes when there is impingement and bony proliferative change between the vertebrae. “We can inject locally between the affected vertebrae to relieve inf lammation and soreness, to try to improve the horse’s mobility and get him to raise his back, if he can. Until you relieve the pain, it feels like he has a knife in his back all the time,” says Mitchell.
“With a back problem in which the horse is functioning poorly, our goal is to make the horse comfortable enough to work and get fit again,” Mitchell says. “It’s the same thing we try to do with people who have a bad back. If you can get the patient rehabilitated well enough to be relatively pain free, then the patient can “Acupuncture can also be useful function enough to exercise for lower degrees of discomfort, and become stronger— thereby supporting the and to support and improve what otherwise impaired back.
Many horses continue to compete, in spite of sacroiliac problems. They periodically need treatment, but they might have a chance to heal more completely and get is being accomplished with direct over the injuries—such as medical therapy.” damage to the ligaments “We try to relieve pain that support the joint—if and increase motion and they have some time off. mobility,” he continues. “If “Some horses, however, we can get these horses comfortable and working are predisposed to sacroiliac problems because of again, they may be able to function in such a way their conformation, how they jump, or how they are that they can maintain mobility of these joints. We ridden,” he says. “So, you won’t eliminate all the may inject the neck or lumbar facette joints with problems just by giving them a rest. corticosteroids under ultrasonic guidance to put the medication directly into the joint. This will relieve the inf lammation, and then we try to get the horse on a program of exercise to encourage better carriage of the body.
“Sacroiliac strains sometimes require time off. It depends on severity; if a horse is quite lame with a recent sacroiliac injury, we may treat it with an intra-articular injection in the sacroiliac joint, but there may be so
“A lot of horses with back pain develop bad habits in how they move,” he explains. “They work in an inverted fashion (dipping down in the back instead of rounded upward). They spit the bit out and become ewe-necked, with hind end trailing behind instead of working underneath them. So, whatever we can do to try to get that horse comfortable, so it can work with a rounded back and f lex at the lumbosacral joint and f lex SEP TEMBER 2011 | 317AA