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| Author |
Message |
    
Cathy Miller (Buddil)
| | Posted on Sunday, Jun 30, 2002 - 3:12 pm: |   |
Hi Dr. O, I know you are not a fan of Isoxsuprene, but my vet had said that he has had fantastic results with it. My gelding was recently diagnosed with "Navicular Syndrome" due to a change in the navicular bone and sound on PDN block. He has been on Isoxsuprene for 1 1/2 weeks now with very little change, still a grade 2 lame. How long does it take for this drug to have some type of an effect? Also if anyone out there has had luck with this, could you answer this? We have padded him and next week we are going to try a wedge. He is navicular in only one front foot. Any comments would be helpful! Thanks! Cathy |
Robert N. Oglesby DVM (Dro)
| | Posted on Monday, Jul 1, 2002 - 3:20 am: | |
Current research suggests that at clinical doses there is no effect on blood flow in the foot (Vet Surg 1999 May-Jun;28(3):154-60; The effect of oral isoxsuprine and pentoxifylline on digital and laminar blood flow in healthy horses. Ingle-Fehr JE, Baxter GM. Department of Clinical Sciences, Veterinary Teaching Hospital, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, USA.).
We have information on the diagnosis and treatment of Navicular Syndrome at, Equine Diseases: Lameness: Foot and Sole Problems: Navicular Disease / Syndrome. Let us know how you do.
DrO |
Tami Attard (Tattard)
| | Posted on Friday, Jul 5, 2002 - 12:53 pm: | |
Hi Cathy,
My 16 yr old TB gelding was also recently diagnosed with NS and is on week 2 of isoxuprine. He was shod 1 1/2 weeks ago with bar shoes and wedge pads and last week was more lame than he had been before :-( I called the vet, who said that my horse would need some time to get used to the new shoes and that sometimes that may take a few weeks. Regarding the isoxuprine, he said that sometimes horses show improvement within 2 weeks and other horse take as long as 6 weeks. It seems like such an individual thing.
Tami |
Cathy Miller (Buddil)
| | Posted on Friday, Jul 5, 2002 - 2:42 pm: | |
Thanks Tami, since I had written in my gelding has shown GREAT improvement! Instead of bobbing his head every 10 steps he slightly bobs every 25-30 and only on a smaller circle or in a corner. The tripping has stopped and he is putting his heel down first now. My vet says to give it a little more time, he is showing improvement so it has helped. I am putting him in a wedge pad next week so hopefully the rest of the bobbing will go away. He improved from a grade 3 to a grade 1 with just padding him and the isoxsuprene. Hope yours shows the improvement that mine has with medication. Some horses don't, some do. Good luck to you, it is such a horrible thing to have a lame horse, I feel so bad for mine.
Cathy |
Robert N. Oglesby DVM (Dro)
| | Posted on Sunday, Jul 7, 2002 - 9:12 am: | |
Hello guys,
To help others with this problem would both you mind giving me a brief history of your horses lamenesses:
How long lame?
Primary clinical signs?
Which leg(s) lame?
What was the diagnosis of NS based on?
DrO |
Cathy Miller (Buddil)
| | Posted on Sunday, Jul 7, 2002 - 4:53 pm: | |
Hi Dr. O, my gelding was grade 3 lame on left front when flexed. X-rays revealed a spot on the navicular bone and his joints were fine. He blocked sound with PDN block. He has been lame on and off for 6 months, but my previous vet attributed it to his hocks and bearing too much weight on the front end to take the pain off of the back end. Did not care to block him to see the problem due to the horse being bad with needles. He did not want to inject the hocks because he wanted him to start fusion and he believed that injecting would only prolong the process. Moved my horse to a new barn where he has 10 acres to be on all day in hopes that increased turnout would help. He previously had only 1 hour per day. With the new barn also came a change of vet! The new vet has done a full lameness exam to see what was going on. Grade 2 in the hocks due to spurs in the lower joints on both legs, grade 3 in the front left, right front was sound. Started him on 30 tablets per day of Isoxsuprene 3 weeks ago and the last few days I have ridden him he has been wonderful. Very little head bobbing in the corners, we ride Dressage. We are going to shoe him this week with a 2 degree wedge and square the toe to see if he goes totally sound with this. Since December with my move I also had changed farriers and he does a great job, does a four point trim on him and sets his shoes very far back. He also did pour in pads on the front feet, which had helped him go from grade 3 to grade 2 just before the Isoxsuprene was started. My old farrier of 3 years did leave a long toe and not a great heel. He has been on a small amount of bute daily for the past 2 weeks (1 gram). He weighs in at 1520 lbs (big boy) so that is not much bute for him. After we do the wedge shoe we will cut the Isoxsuprene down and see how it goes and eventually do away with the bute. Thanks for your interest, any other suggestions would be wonderful!
Cathy |
Robert N. Oglesby DVM (Dro)
| | Posted on Tuesday, Jul 9, 2002 - 8:21 am: | |
Cathy, with a unilateral lameness this does not fit a typical navicular syndrome and truly remains a undiagnosed front limb lameness localized to the heel / sole region. It sounds like you are currently managing this aggressively and effectively and I endorse all of your outlined treatment with the excepton of the isoxsuprine, but then again I do not believe it will hurt.
DrO |
Cathy Miller (Buddil)
| | Posted on Tuesday, Jul 9, 2002 - 1:49 pm: | |
Thanks Dr. O., he continues to get better every day and tomarrow we are adding the wedge pad to see if that will do it. We are going to lower the Isoxsuprene in another week and it will be interesting if that does anything. Will keep you posted.
Cathy |
Tami Attard (Tattard)
| | Posted on Tuesday, Jul 9, 2002 - 5:47 pm: | |
Hi Dr O,
I have had my 16 yr old TB gelding for 3 1/2 yrs, and he has never shown any signs of lameness. When I purchased him, he wore an egg bar shoe on the front right foot. The person I bought him from said he was always shod that way because he had low heels. I have a farrier with an excellent reputation for corrective shoeing. After shoeing Blue for 2 1/2 years the farrier decided that he would travel better in wedge pads and regular shoes. This method worked fine since last spring. Blue has been moving beautifully and working eagerly, especially in the last year. He's such a beautiful boy! In late April, I took him for a walk down the drive-way. He tripped on a stone and I thought nothing of it. I returned to the sand ring and he was slightly lame on the right front at the trot, so I put him away to let him rest. Later that week his leg seemed sorer. At the beginning of May, the vet nerve blocked him and he blocked sound on the PDN block and showed no lameness on the left side. The vet suspected a bruise and suggested stall rest. Blue was stall rested, with hand-grazing and occassional short turn-out for 6 weeks and was still lame. I took him to another vet who apparently specialized in diagnosing lameness. He x-rayed my horse and diagnosed him with advanced navicular syndrome. The second vet suggested isoxuprine and plastic egg bar shoes. Blue's been on the isoxuprine for 3 weeks now and has been re-shod, but with steel shoes. I will be at the barn tomorrow and will see how he's feeling then.
I was surprised with the disgnosis because the onset was sudden and acute and showed no evidence of being present in both legs. Also, because there is no baseline x-ray to compare with, how do we know that what the x-ray showed was just what Blue's navicular looks like...? |
Robert N. Oglesby DVM (Dro)
| | Posted on Wednesday, Jul 10, 2002 - 6:56 am: | |
I agree with you Tami, I have seen horrible radiographs of navicular bones on perfectly sound horses and vice versa. Obviously this horse does not fit the crtieria for NS in our article so you moight ask the vet for a further clarification. It may be that this is the vets term for "I don't know" as it is for so many vets after all that is what the term "syndrome" means. However recognized syndromes do have a constellation of signs and history and this ain't it.
I would be interested in the specific type, severity, and number of lesions on the sound and unsound foot.
DrO |
Tami Attard (Tattard)
| | Posted on Thursday, Jul 11, 2002 - 3:01 pm: | |
Dr O,
Can you explain a little further the benefit of x-raying the sound foot and what a comparison of the type, severity, and number of lesions would tell me?
I visited Blue yesterday and he trotted much more comfortably than 2 weeks ago, but he is still not sound :-(
Thank you in advance for any information or advice that you can provide. I am receiving so much conflicting information...
Tami |
Robert N. Oglesby DVM (Dro)
| | Posted on Friday, Jul 12, 2002 - 4:31 am: | |
It gives you something to compare to. If the lesions are similar on the sound foot I believe they have less significance.
DrO |
Anthea Cillie
New Member
Username: Anthea
Post Number: 1
Registered: 10-2005
| | Posted on Friday, Oct 21, 2005 - 1:02 pm: | |
Dr O, I live in South Africa and have a 17 year old horse that I have had for 10 years. When I bought him I knew there was joint deterioration, but was prepared to look after him, which I have done. However he became lame in the near fore about 6 weeks ago. He has had some bute and been rested since then but is still trotting out lame. He has been to the Onderstepoort Veterinary teaching hospital in Pretoria for x-rays and scoping. There was no definite result, but my Vet thinks there may be navicular changes that are not showing up. She would like to treat him with Isoxuprene but for some reason it is not available in SA. I just can't give up on him. We don't compete but I need to help him and get him through this and will do what it takes. Right now I am not worrying about the price, but need to get the Isoxuprene. Is there somewhere I can order it on the internet? Please can you advise me? I am sure that my vet will be happy to provide a prescription but I just don't know who contact. Anthea |
Wiley G Gillmor
Member
Username: Wgillmor
Post Number: 10
Registered: 4-2005
| | Posted on Friday, Oct 21, 2005 - 8:23 pm: | |
Anthea,
Dr. O will probably suggest you start a new thread. In the mean time, look at:
http://froogle.google.com/froogle?num=30&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&c2coff=1&rls=GGGL,GG GL:2005-09,GGGL:en&q=Isoxsuprine%20&btnG=Search&sa=N&tab=wf
I don't know if any of them will ship to South Africa, however.
Good luck,
Wiley |
Robert N. Oglesby DVM
Moderator
Username: Dro
Post Number: 13955
Registered: 1-1997
| | Posted on Saturday, Oct 22, 2005 - 8:59 am: | |
I too am uncertain about the drug import laws but that looks as good a place as any for her veterinarian to start.
DrO |
