Degenerative disease 0: Rehab 5

Some of you will have seen a blog post I put up last month which challenged the traditional opinion that navicular is a degenerative disease.

The evidence following remedial farriery is that typically lameness worsens and the soft tissue and bone damage evident on MRI and x-ray worsens over time. 

The evidence from our rehab horses is quite the opposite - that if a horse goes barefoot with correct work and improved biomechanics lameness improves and soft tissue and bone damage repair. 

I can point to a lot of sound horses in work following rehab, but of course only a handful of horses have had follow-up MRI or x-ray after their rehab here as its hard to justify the expense of doing so with a sound horse.

Nevertheless, last month I reported that there were 4 horses who had had investigation post-rehab, all of whom showed healed tendons or ligaments on MRI or new bone growth on x-ray.

This month its 5, as I had great news from Krista and Buddy, to cap their jumping success at the weekend.

"Buddy had his X-rays done today and nothing has degenerated since they were last taken (25th Sep 2012) and the damage to his navicular bone has improved as has the pedal oestitis in both feet. Don't get me wrong the changes are very slight [which you'd expect as it is only 6 months since Buddy went home and bone is the slowest to change] BUT they are improvements. So much for it being a degenerative condition."