My special needs gelding was diagnosed with bone chips on his cannon bone a month ago. I had him xrayed cuz I thought he had broke his splint bone. He got kicked and had a knot on the bone. Nope. Its definitely a chip. So my question is... How sound is he going to be? The vet recomended shockwave therapy. 3 rounds and go from there. We did the first treatment then they called yesterday to tell me the machine is broke and wont be back for a month. Will I have to start over on the treatments now? Does it work or would surgicaly removing the pieces be better? HELP! This is a first for me.
it kind of depends on the size of the chip and where in the joint it is.... And my vet says some of them will like form a capsule around the chip that makes it not irritate the joint as the bodys natural response to the fracture. I can tell you that my horse had a small chip in her knee for 2 years or so and I was able to use injections/ previcox/ legend to keep her running 1d (she is 14 though) and it was enough for awhile but then this spring she fell and just started clocking 6 tenths or so slower. when we x rayed we found she had made a new chip... and decided to do surgery and irap. We did it in July, it only cost me about 2000 all together and she was at the vet for a week and had chips taken from both knees, so if surgery is an option and the horse has enough years left to justify I cant see what it would hurt. I cant say for sure how much it helped as she is still on pasture rest for another month...If she does have surgery she will need 2-3 months off depending on who you go to and age, etc
If it isn't in the joint or bothering any soft tissue I wouldn't think you would need to remove it. I had a chip taken out of my gelding last October. He had it in his fetlock. He was off for 3 months but then came back great after his surgery. Good luck!
Bone chip
