Consequences Related To Navicular Disease

By Mattie Knight


It is one of the most common causes of chronic forelimb inside wound in horses. It is associated with swelling of the boat-shaped bone and leads to significant problem for the horses. Since there are various of dealing with navicular disease, infected horses can still head back to their normal health conditions.

One of the main symptoms of this sickness is where the horse places its weight on toes most of the times. The horse does this to hinder pain and pressure on the scaphoid bone. Another sign is that the horse delays to stop the strides it takes. Horses who are victims of this illness keep on shifting their weight when standing to reduce pain on the heel area. This makes the horses to place most of their weight on the toes making the gait hard resulting to pain mostly on the shoulders. Such condition disappears after the animal rests. Presence of long toes and under slung heels is another symptom found in horses with navicular sickness.

The main known cause of navicular ailment is interference with blood circulation around the scaphoid bone. Damage is mostly found in the deep flexor tendon, the burse and the bone tissues which causes pain. Horses with about five years or more have a probability of developing the symptoms of the disease. However, the illness can easily be treated.

Diagnosis of navicular ailment is based on both clinical and radiographic signs. This simply means physical and x-ray diagnosis respectively. Veterinarians use hoof testers to conduct physical diagnosis. The testers are applied on the front legs of the horse and if the sickness is present, the horse flinches. The same is done on the hind legs to compare how the horse reacts.

Medication of the complaint is done through various techniques. Appropriate shoeing is one of the techniques of dealing with this illness. It is simply balancing of hooves forward to backward and side wards. Since the most experienced impact of this affliction is long toes, this can be corrected by trimming the front hoof.

The third aspect of controlling scaphoid bone sickness is using drugs. A drug that has successfully been used is isoxsuprine. This drug helps in enlarging blood arteries surrounding the scaphoid bone hence allowing free flow of blood. Eighty percent of horses treated with isoxsuprine have responded to it. This is according to the latest studies conducted.

Exercising of horses by riding them at intervals of thirty to sixty minutes six times a week is a recommended way of dealing with scaphoid bone complaint. This highly improves blood circulation in the navicular bone. With this technique, horses are trained to use their back legs in supporting most their weight. The last way of dealing with navicular illness is through operation. Horses who fail to respond using drugs, exercise and correct shoeing, surgery is recommended.

In conclusion, the ailment is not a death sentence. With the types of medication mentioned above and much care, the sickness can be managed and victims can head back to their normal health. Awareness on how to deal with this affliction should be created so as to save as many horses as possible.




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