I have read that Pentosan probably won't show clinical improvement until after the 2nd/ 3rd dose. I just gave him the 2nd dose today - all by myself, too! I have been dreading having to give shots in fear of messing it up or doing it wrong, but I have had several people show me in person and I watched lots of videos so I could see several approaches. It went just fine and I feel like a million bucks! Whew!
Whether I am seeing clinical improvements from Pentosan yet or not, I am THRILLED about how he is doing. Shorty continues to be one happy and good looking boy. I saw him earlier this week on Wednesday just to brush him and see how he was doing. I thought he was moving around great, specifically turning exceptionally normal! :D
I thought today was the same, if not even better! When turning in a small circle, there is not a single limp to be seen and he is finally reaching and stepping under his center of gravity with that hind inside leg. No more shuffling or awkward movements. I thought he was lifting up his back legs higher today as well. I am just ecstatic and overjoyed!
It has been raining since Thursday night and the horses have had a lot of inside time lately, so when I went out late morning today after he finished his breakfast hay, he was happy to get out. He was especially happy to have his head scratched all over and was such a ham! After I cleaned him up and gave him his shot, I hand walked him around 20 minutes and let him eat some grass. When I led him down the barn isle to go walk in the back pasture, he was walking so briskly and confidently, clip-clopping rhythmically as we went - what a change from a couple months ago when he was almost limping down the isle! When we walked out the back door into the pasture, he began prancing like a racehorse ready to go! Once he realized I wasn't letting him go, he settled right back down and walked with me like a good boy, but man I am sure he would have had a nice bucking gallop! It's just too wet though and we're trying not to tear up the grass right now, especially with his shoes.
I am interested to see how he rides next time. Just in case he is feeling extra good, which I kind of expect he will, we will definitely be doing some lunging workouts before rides. That way I can also see if there is marked improvement with his movement.
I am just at a loss for words right now, knowing where we came from. I really hope our lowest low is well behind us!
Sunday, October 25, 2015
Saturday, October 17, 2015
Pentosan is here!
My Pentosan just arrived from my vet today! We will begin tomorrow morning and then he will receive one dose each week for the next 3 weeks. After that it is monthly or as needed. So far I am just grateful that everything has gone as planned. I wanted to begin the Pentosan earlier this month because the Previcox is almost gone. There are only a few days left of that now and I pray that Shorty will not decline without it. Fingers crossed!
The end of this month will be 2 months since we have seen our vet and so I will probably be scheduling that soon. I am anxiously looking forward to seeing how his check-up goes after the changes so far.
We had a nice relaxing walk ride in the dark last night. It is getting dark so quickly now :( There is some lighting enough to get on and get around. I personally think it is such a weird and kind of scary feeling cantering around in the dark, so nice and easy walk ride yesterday with some shoulder-in and leg yielding thrown in.
The end of this month will be 2 months since we have seen our vet and so I will probably be scheduling that soon. I am anxiously looking forward to seeing how his check-up goes after the changes so far.
We had a nice relaxing walk ride in the dark last night. It is getting dark so quickly now :( There is some lighting enough to get on and get around. I personally think it is such a weird and kind of scary feeling cantering around in the dark, so nice and easy walk ride yesterday with some shoulder-in and leg yielding thrown in.
Monday, October 5, 2015
Fall is here!!
The weather is great! Not too cool and not too hot. I will enjoy it while it lasts, but soon it will be way too cold for my taste, brr! I'm definitely a summer girl.
Shorty has been great! He spent a few days without his left shoe because it came off during a ride last week. He trotted a bit off because of having one wedge and shoe on and one off, but otherwise it didn't bother him at all! He walked briskly and normally around and down the barn isle. That makes me so glad because I had feared him not being able to ever be barefoot again after all of this due to pain or discomfort. Losing the shoe sucked, but I was glad to find out he is not tender footed, yay!
Luckily, the farrier was scheduled to come out at the end of the week and he said he has REALLY good looking feet. The left hoof used to be wider from bearing more weight, and now his feet look more identical. This means he has been bearing equal weight for a while now and it shows!
We only did a 1 degree wedge this time. The pad doesn't even go all the way around - it's just on the back of his hoof. If he stays well, we will go to only bar shoes without the wedge, and then the next step is to try regular shoes!! I am crossing my fingers. A bit of normalcy would be so nice.
I will get some Pentosan joint supplement (injected into muscle) from my vet soon to replace the Previcox. Previcox is an NSAID so it is like taking aspirin every single day. I really want him to be able to get a way from that. Pentosan has a lot of super reviews and would be an alternative to purchasing a feed through joint supplement, which, we all know the controversy on that for how much horses actually benefit from eating glucosamine, chondroitin, and HA. Pentosan will help with any inflammation and is known to actually prevent and improve arthritis.
I've added Omega Horseshine (flaxseed) to his grain and I think he is happy to have his flax back! He thinks it is very tasty. He is still getting 8,000 IU of vitamin E per day and since it is just a super good value I will probably continue that until someone tells me to stop ha ha. He looks soooo good right now so I must be doing something right!
I am so glad that I have my riding horse back, but now we are having those normal issues with being one-sided and not wanting to jump into the canter correctly to the right - left is good! He is majorly falling into the circle during trot-canter transitions and trot work, especially where there is not a fence to guide off of. He can be quite rushy at the trot still, but he takes half halts well, so as long as I keep communicating with him he is still very responsive even though he obviously feels really good. It feels like we are on our way to working those types of things out, though (again!!). Right now it is walk, canter, and some circles of trot each ride. Not too much collection or anything now, but I have started asking for shoulder-fore quite often at the walk the last few rides to kind of get back into things. As soon as we go up to trot/canter, he kind of falls apart! We have a lot of conditioning work ahead, but I am looking forward to it :)
Shorty has been great! He spent a few days without his left shoe because it came off during a ride last week. He trotted a bit off because of having one wedge and shoe on and one off, but otherwise it didn't bother him at all! He walked briskly and normally around and down the barn isle. That makes me so glad because I had feared him not being able to ever be barefoot again after all of this due to pain or discomfort. Losing the shoe sucked, but I was glad to find out he is not tender footed, yay!
Luckily, the farrier was scheduled to come out at the end of the week and he said he has REALLY good looking feet. The left hoof used to be wider from bearing more weight, and now his feet look more identical. This means he has been bearing equal weight for a while now and it shows!
We only did a 1 degree wedge this time. The pad doesn't even go all the way around - it's just on the back of his hoof. If he stays well, we will go to only bar shoes without the wedge, and then the next step is to try regular shoes!! I am crossing my fingers. A bit of normalcy would be so nice.
I will get some Pentosan joint supplement (injected into muscle) from my vet soon to replace the Previcox. Previcox is an NSAID so it is like taking aspirin every single day. I really want him to be able to get a way from that. Pentosan has a lot of super reviews and would be an alternative to purchasing a feed through joint supplement, which, we all know the controversy on that for how much horses actually benefit from eating glucosamine, chondroitin, and HA. Pentosan will help with any inflammation and is known to actually prevent and improve arthritis.
I've added Omega Horseshine (flaxseed) to his grain and I think he is happy to have his flax back! He thinks it is very tasty. He is still getting 8,000 IU of vitamin E per day and since it is just a super good value I will probably continue that until someone tells me to stop ha ha. He looks soooo good right now so I must be doing something right!
I am so glad that I have my riding horse back, but now we are having those normal issues with being one-sided and not wanting to jump into the canter correctly to the right - left is good! He is majorly falling into the circle during trot-canter transitions and trot work, especially where there is not a fence to guide off of. He can be quite rushy at the trot still, but he takes half halts well, so as long as I keep communicating with him he is still very responsive even though he obviously feels really good. It feels like we are on our way to working those types of things out, though (again!!). Right now it is walk, canter, and some circles of trot each ride. Not too much collection or anything now, but I have started asking for shoulder-fore quite often at the walk the last few rides to kind of get back into things. As soon as we go up to trot/canter, he kind of falls apart! We have a lot of conditioning work ahead, but I am looking forward to it :)
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