This message is from: Gail Russell <g...@zeliga.com>
>From this description below, it appears good trimming is important. Gail "How Does Ringbone Occur? Riding With Ringbone I personally own and ride a horse that has high ringbone. Although he is no longer a performance horse, I still ride him on trail and he is very comfortable because I give him what he needs. He responded very well to extracorporeal shockwave therapy (ESWT), but became lame again when I stopped riding during the winter rains. I will do another ESWT treatment on him to see if I can make him more comfortable. He has had joint injections, and I give him Legend I.V. and Adequan I.M. regularly. Initially he had a small bone spur on his pastern joint that turned into significant ringbone over the course of about three years. His current bony changes haven’t progressed over the last two years. On the whole this is very typical for this disease. He has been a great lesson for me on how to manage ringbone, how to manage the owner and that a horse with this disease can still have a good quality of life. —Janice Posnikoff, DVM The most common cause of ringbone is abnormal stress on the joint, causing joint surface damage and subsequent bony development. The abnormal stress can be in the form of poor conformation, imbalanced shoeing or working on poor ground surfaces. Base-narrow or base-wide conformation, combined with a toed-in or toed-out stance, creates increased weight-bearing forces on the inside or outside of the joint by causing the horse to land first on the outside or inside of the leg. These increased forces can cause microdamage to the cartilage on the joint surface and microtearing of the joint capsule or of the collateral ligaments (stabilizing ligament on either side of the joint). The body reacts to this microdamage initially as inflammation. Inflammatory cells release toxins that create more tissue damage and thin the joint fluid. More tissue damage creates more inflammatory cells, and a cycle begins of increasing damage. As the damage increases the body attempts to heal initially ! with scar tissue, which then progresses into bony development. The length of time it takes for this to occur varies and is dependent on many factors. The more trauma, and the more severe the conformational abnormalities, the quicker the disease progresses. Hoof balance, proper trimming and shoeing, footing and exercise are very big factors in this disease. Unbalanced hooves, as well as long toe/low heel, can cause severe stress on the joints. Shoeing a horse with shortened toes to increase breakover decreases the stress on the joints and helps reduce the inflammation, and can help slow the development of disease. Hard footing increases trauma on the joints, while deep footing increases the flexion of the joints leading to possible overflexion and damage to the joint capsule. " Important FjordHorse List Links: Subscription Management: http://tinyurl.com/5msa7e FH-L Archives: http://tinyurl.com/rcepw FH_L Shirts: http://tinyurl.com/8yky94l
