Telly's History

OK Long post here about my fabulous horse and all the problems we’ve had with him since our initial Pre Purchase.
The reason for this post is to see if any of you have had similar experiences or have suggestions on what else we can look into doing.


Dec 2002 Pre Purchase: Left Stifle OCD, Right Hind Torn Suspensory
Took a chance and bought him anyway, he had the surgery and 6 months off.
Was basically fine through 04 but then beginning of 05 we started having issues again. Constant hind end lameness and many visits to variety of vets one which we truly felt could have messed him up. All checked out his suspensory, the hocks and stifles, with the diagnosis usually always pointing to his right hock. Now mind you there has been moments throughout these years when he has had some sound days with no bute but it never lasted for a long period of time.

He was given hock and stifle injections every 6 months for a few years until finally a vet said there was no point in injecting since it was not really helping, especially the right hock since it was fusing. Except this fusing process happened to be going on for a couple of years and we found out that could be causing his discomfort. So we decided in Oct 08 to have the hock drilled and hopefully speed up the process.
There was a period after that when I felt he was going very nicely until his next problem occurred in March this year he was diagnosed with a kidney stone and had to have surgery to remove that.

Now our most recent visit this summer we were starting to wonder if the hock was really our trouble or if maybe it had to do with a stifle. But x rays showed no damage and both were pretty clean. We were told his right hock had major DJD arthritis, which we knew he has had early onset arthritis since 05 I believe and now we find out his left hock is developing some arthritis.

I know we did try Adequan for a bit back in 05 but with no huge success and discontinued use.
He also has a small spur on his right hock but were told from the beginning that would not cause him trouble.
I have tried many different techniques including riding him for many months to see if constant work would help him get stronger and work out of it and long periods of time off to recuperate and see if he would come back sound…..no luck either way.
A couple of years ago we put him on Hyaluronex and felt there was some improvement but then he got bad again so we took him off. I also tried a supplement from SmartPak for a while and thought he was showing some improvement but had to discontinue due to lack of funds.

Now since our purchase through 08 he always had 4 shoes and his back feet were usually squared off. Then we removed his shoes for a couple months in 09 but he got really sore and now he just has front ones on.
I also purchased magnetic hock boots and don’t use them religiously but do try to put them on occasionally so I can‘t say if they have or have not done any wonders on him.


Another thing that we do know that may be a cause for his issues and we have tried to trace back to when it possibly occurred, but still haven’t been able to collect all of his xrays is viewable in below image.
You will notice some white material at the front of his hock which is cartilage that has formed and we believe is caused by someone injecting him from the front. Of course there isn’t anything that can be done for that so….I hope that is not the issue.

On our most recent visit of course there was no true diagnosis and the only thing they could come up with was some shadowing on his right hind on that long bone above the hock that they believe could be a cyst. Possibly viewable on that pic, not sure as I don’t have his recent xrays to compare with. So I am trying to save up my money to take a final trip to a vet and see if there is anything that can be done to at least keep him comfortable as I really do not want him to have any more surgeries unless that is the only way to solve the problem.

I have recently tried giving him bute before a ride to see if there would be any improvement, but have had no success. His current state of traveling is slight short strided on right side and slight toe drag. From my point of view it always seems like the right hip drops lower but then that would point to the left side but the diagnosis is always the right.
Now I also read that a lot of horses develop a sore back from arthritis and compensation but I know he never flinches away when touched but maybe there is some tightness as I know he is always looking for a good massage from anyone. But he is never naughty when you ride but that is because he has a big heart and will do anything for you. So I am kinda left in the dark right now. Until I get a job unfortunately I can not do anything more for him but would like to start looking into other solutions if there are any. Even if they are temporary to alleviate some pain.