At 12:02:44 on 28.01.10, Matty wrote:
My horse was diagnosed with a chipped pedal bone 4 months ago. To give you a brief history, I took him to the Badminton Sponsored Ride at the end of September. He was a bit adrenaline fueled but didn't trip, jumped everything and didn't appear lame anywhere on the course. The only thing that did happen was another big, out of control, horse collided with him/us at one point, and may have stamped on his foot. He didn't appear lame until one hour after getting home (apart from nail prick in the past and sole bruising he has never been lame before). The lameness was most apparent in trot. Initial x-rays by the vet revealed a tiny spur on the coffin joint and he was given a steroid injection into the joint. This only had a minor effect on the lameness. Further x-rays (please check out the URL to see the x-rays) revealed a small chip. The vet said there was no need for box rest and time would be the healer. As the ground became harder in the cold weather his lameness got worse so I decided to keep him in. He has now been on box rest for nearly 2 months. There has been a small improvement but he is still lame when trotted up. It is obvious by his demeanour that he is not in excruciating pain but he is still un-rideable. My questions for you experts out there are; a) What is a reasonable amount of time to expect this injury to heal in? Is 4 months too long and should I be investigating other avenues or treatment? b) Is box rest the best idea or will turn-out not make any difference to healing time? c) My vet advises that operations on such injuries are rarely carried out. Obviously I don't want to put my horse through a GA unnecessarily but are there occasions where the sequestrum causes problems and has to be removed? Any advice or info from past experiences would be appreciated. He is going in for more x-rays tomorrow and obviously I want to do as much as I can for him before my claim period on his insurance runs out! Many thanks in advance!!! Matty
http://www.trotontv.com/myseat/myseatprofile

At 12:22:46 on 28.01.10, Matty wrote:
REPOSTING X-RAYS - Hopefully you'll be able to see bigger x-rays here!!
http://www.trotontv.com/community/showalbum/2089/flynns-chipped-pedal-bone.html

At 18:52:29 on 29.01.10, HorseVet wrote:
Hi Matty It sounds like there are 2 issues - one was a bone spur 4 months ago, the second a bone chip 2 months ago. Did the spur become the chip? Chips are obviously more of a problem if they are floating in the joint as they will interfere with the joint and may cause damage to the cartilage. If the chip is still attached to where it has broken off from and is not moving around as a joint mouse then it needs to re-attach or be resorbed. See what the latest x-rays show and you'll no doubt get an idea as to how it is progressing since the last set and that will hopefully give you a more predictive idea of what you're looking at from the time perspective. Best wishes HorseVet
http://www.naturalhealingsolutions.co.uk

At 19:46:47 on 29.01.10, Matty wrote:
Thanks HorseVet. I probably worded it badly but the two issues are the same. The coffin joint was only treated as that was all the vet could find after the first set of x-rays (done about 3 weeks after the horse went lame). He admitted though that the joint itself was actually pretty good and certainly no worse than you'd expect to see in a 13 year old horse of 17hh. The whole spur/coffin joint issue was probably a red herring as later x-rays revealed a chip off the wing of the pedal bone which is now completely detached. Todays x-rays revealed no major change other than the picture of the chip was a bit more 'murky' which suggests the body is trying to sort itself out (!? non-techno speak). The vet said the next stage would be a bone scan which would show if they had missed anything else on the x-ray, but I am going to give him another month of rest before going down that route. Let me know what you think. I'm guessing it's just one of those things that takes a long time.