02/19/2024
All right, y’all, I’m going to vent a bit.
I’ve seen plenty of posts on social media of lame horses and owners asking for help with rehab. Unfortunately, hoof issues are a bit of a pandemic, but fortunately - through attention and research- we are learning so much more about the foot and ways to keep it healthy and give it a fighting chance at soundness.
So this morning, when I scrolled across some radiographs of a laminitic horse- where the before and after didn’t seem much better to me- I stopped to read the post.
The horse had been sore for quite some time and nothing seemed to help, so they tried bigger and bigger interventions to the feet, until finally they found an extensive shoeing package that allowed the horse to amble around a bit more comfortably.
My first thought was- wow, that seems really extreme, but I’m glad they found something to make the horse a bit more comfy.
My second thought was- I wonder why this horse needed such extreme measures to improve.
That question was answered pretty quickly when I saw an image of said horse out in a large green pasture of fresh grass.
Up to 90% of laminitis is endocrinopathic. Meaning up to 90% of laminitic cases should not be on grass. Meaning up to 90% of laminitic horses will continue to founder and their laminae will continue to fail until their diet and metabolic issues are addressed.
And we can do all we want to their feet- and some things may help, and some won’t, and some may work for a time until the horse can’t compensate anymore- but ultimately NOTHING will stop the laminae breakdown until the root cause is addressed.
I see so many turn to bigger and bigger interventions, more drastic approaches, when the root cause isn’t even addressed. And don’t get me started on the fact that half of these posts I see are trying to sell a product for these horses.. without even addressing the cause of the issue. Let’s sell a bandaid to people desperately trying to save their horse.
I’m trying not to become too preachy over here, but to be honest just sitting here typing this I’m getting a bit worked up.
Because when we focus on the feet in isolation, we are missing the forest for the trees.
Hooves are attached to an animal and the hoof reveals the health of that animal -in laminitis cases especially.
Doing things to the feet may (at least temporarily) help with comfort, but it will not stop the internal damage until we remove the trigger for the laminitis.
And maybe, if we got to the trigger first and removed it right away, we wouldn’t even need those interventions at all.
Now I’m not naive to believe that every single laminitis case is this straightforward. In fact, I absolutely know they aren’t. There are some where a toxin leads to SIRS laminitis and those feet almost melt apart. Supporting limb laminitis can feel like a car crash you don’t know how to stop. And some metabolic cases can be so tightly managed and still have refractory high insulin.. or we increase pergolide just a few weeks too late for the seasonal rise and those horses just crash and then we are chasing ACTH levels.
There are some who need every single tool in the toolbox and some who we just can’t make comfortable.
But at the very least, we need to start with the basics. ECIR emergency diet. Looking for the root cause. Removing as many triggers as we can think of. AND work on getting the horse comfortable.
But don’t just look at the feet and forget the horse and their living situation.
/rant. (And apologies for the drama).
