LAUREN DEROCK, DVM
EMPOWERING YOU TO HELP YOUR HORSE
EMPOWERING YOU TO HELP YOUR HORSE
IS THIS YOUR HORSE'S PROBLEM
HERE ARE SOME SYMPTOMS OF THE “SACRO-SCIATIC SYNDROME” –SEE WHERE YOUR HORSE MIGHT FIT SOME OR ALL OF THESE
1) Pain at the base of the neck
a. Put your fingers on either side of the last neck vertebra close to the shoulder and apply deep pressure.
2) “Girthiness,” “Cold Back.” Pain and discomfort anywhere around the girth area, chest area, and withers.
3) Pain at the Poll Joint, C2 and C3 often worse, then down the rest of the neck
4) Pain down the back, especially at the 16th rib (they have 18), about 3 to 5 inches lateral of the midline of the back, in the lumbar area, at the croup, and sometimes all the way down the back of both hind legs to the stifle. Eventually, I believe these horses will develop Sciatic Nerve pain.
5) Performance problems will often be noticed first at the canter, because the Sacro-Iliac joint is locked up as well, and the horse cannot flex his pelvis correctly. The horse may even start to buck or bolt. Your regular vet will think of hock problems. DJD in the hock joint is one of the SYMPTOMS that will eventually come out of this.
6. Sometimes the horse will actually seem to have a flat tire, and fall out under you now and then. It will leave you wondering, “What was that”?
7) When you ride, you will often feel that the stirrups are always uneven (a sure sign of crooked motion)
8) The horse fails to “track up” and often his hind legs stride very close together and may even interfere.
9) The horse gets very uncomfortable, anxious, won’t collect (temptation to use gadgets) or your horse constantly leans on the reins (temptation to use a more severe bit –PLEASE DON’T)
10) The horse may drag his hind feet, and/or drag his front feet and stumble. Because he is jammed in C7 to T4 he can’t get out of his own way. Couple this with some less then desirable shoeing, and you have an even greater problem. I have many times treated horses that have been EPM suspects. However, if the horse responds and is better with one treatment, as is often the case, it wasn’t EPM.
11) Often, especially when going down hill, the horse will seem to spook at something and other horses will look around to see where the danger is. But it may not be something he saw, it could be something he felt, like a hotshot in his hind quarters.
The list can go on, symptom after symptom. You would be amazed at how many mysterious lameness problems that will not respond to conventional therapy can respond very quickly to addressing the “Sacro-Sciatic Syndrome”.
When you look at how horses are commonly ridden you think: Where have we gone, and what did we lose from the masters? We can do better with understanding. And, guess what, the horse loves it, and will work joyfully for you.
If the horse is "locked up" in his body, unhappy, can't get out of his own way because of pain, there can be not only ugly, but very serious consequences. The first is a picture I took out of a sales article. Every horse is up-side-down, and of course in the second picture, everyone is up-side-down.
