Long story short, I don't remember what I have included in my other posts, but my horse got hock injections in August, started doing great again, better than ever actually. A couple weekends ago he went back to not wanting to go in, my first night was Friday. He basically just stopped and backed up a little. I got him in by just having forward direction and kissing. Didn't take super long. He did not run normal though, felt slower. The next day I had PEMF done on him and a girl did some stretches on him for me. My saddle seemed to be sitting too far down on his withers causing his wither area to be pretty sore. I ran him later that night with a different saddle, he hesitated slightly but did much better than Friday going in, but still was not running as fast as normal. Since he did good going in I decided to still run him the next day, he did not want to go in again. I didn't do any PEMF sunday or anything. Now last Sunday the 17th, I took him to a chiropractor that also specializes in the cranial area and has a laser she uses for acupunture kinda instead of needles. He has always had problems with his teeth since I first got him about 2 and 1/2 years ago. I switched to my current teeth lady and she did him about 6 months ago, came out last Friday the 15th and he still was sore which led me to bring him to that chiro on sunday. He does have TMJ soreness and there is some things that still need to be done with the bones that connect to the tongue and go down to I believe the chest area etc., but she did advise my saddle was way too far down pressing on his withers so she let me borrow a csi pad and put some shems in it and now it is lifted off his withers and as you know csi pads are good quality too. She thinks for sure the saddle could be causing him to not want to go in, based on how the saddle looks with this pad and how it was before the shems and on my old pad, there is a big difference. I have a vet appointment tomorrow still though, but the main point to my post is if the vet does not see anything else wrong, and fixing the saddle also doesn't solve the him not wanting to go in, what should I do? I do not believe he is just getting sour, I definitely think something is bothering him. Should I treat for ulcers anyways to rule that out as well? He is kind of hard to read sometimes too because the chiro and vet have both said he hides his pain well, so it kind of seems like he holds out until he can't take it anymore to show something is bothering him. My vet thinks he has ulcers because of how he saw him acting at the vet when he was alone without his horse buddy and I walked away. I did not treat the first time, but tomorrow I am going to the same place but a different vet because mine wasn't available so if he thinks he should be treated as well then I will treat him. Sorry I guess this was not short lol. 

Check his lungs. After having 1 scoped and confirmed as a bleeder, I had the others done as well. And wouldn't you know it....

According to the vet the percentage of horses she scopes that have some level of bleeding is pretty dang high. Either way, getting him scoped is pretty cheap and will be worth it to know for sure one way or the other. 

I would check for ulcers, I would scope. My horse showed no signs of them, just didn't want to go in the gate. One day I just was like screw it, scope him for my peace of mind. He had bleeding ulcers from his stomach to his larynx. You would have never known. He's quiet, sleeps most of the time, never anxious or anything to make you think he'd get them. Given your horse's anxiety that we've talked about in you other posts, I'd go that route. But if you treat & don't add a daily preventative they're just going to keep coming back. Treating them can also cause them to come back quickly, it's a nasty cycle. I got caught in it a few times doing sometimes 4-5 30 day treatments in one year. Battled it for years until I found a preventative that actually worked, and it's been almost 4 years now since I've had to treat. And he had gotten bad bad, like would try to climb the panels in an alley, or he tried to climb onto the hood of a truck parked behind the gate once. He's gone in just fine ever since. But what you're describing sounnds more like ulcers to me, but if the saddle was producing that much pain it may be that too. But if it's what you've been riding him in all this time, I would think it would've been an issue long before now. 

Lungs for what? I've never understood what "bleeders" are. 

Honestly I might save my money on the scoping and just treat. What preventative do you use? 

It was $100 for me to have her scoped. But each horse has a little bit different of a treatment plan. My hotter horse for example, gets 1 cc of ace about an hour after her Lasix to help keep her heart rate down. I personally wouldn't be comfortable giving one any drugs without the consultation of a vet. I know that some people swear by the feed through supplements that help support the lungs. However, I have one who is retired because of lung issues that were impropperly managed, so I adhere pretty strictly to the program that the vets have come up with as far as keeping their lungs healthy.

As far as what is a bleeder, I think this article does a pretty good job explaining it. 

Just how common is EIPH? To answer this question, we need to define bleeding. Years ago, before the advent of endoscopes, a horse was called a “bleeder” when it shed blood from the nose after a race (epistaxis). However, research studies have shown that epistaxis occurs in only a very small percentage of racehorses. For example, in a Japanese study, epistaxis related to EIPH was recorded in only 369 of 251,609 race starts, or about 0.15% (Takahashi et al. 2001). In other studies, a slightly higher percentage of racehorses–between 1% and 2%–bled from a nostril after racing.

However, if bleeding is defined as the presence of blood in the windpipe or trachea after hard exercise, the percentage of affected horses skyrockets. This type of EIPH has been referred to as “occult” or “internal” bleeding. In this case, the horse bleeds from the lung, but not the nose.

https://thehorse.com/16537/eiph-exercise-induced-pulmonary-hemorrhage/

Thank you!

Depending on what competitions you are entering, there are new rules and guidelines with giving some medications. The WPRA, for example, will randomly test horses at rodeos and if there is something in your horses' system (lasix, bute, banamine, almost anything) and you don't have paperwork from a vet prescribing it for your horse, you're fined and/or DQ'd depending on how many times this has occurred. So I'd say it's worth the money to find out what is actually wrong and treat that instead of just doing band-aid treatments for the symptoms and not finding the underlying problem itself.

How did the vet appointment go today?

I know you have never x-rays his hocks and that your horse's injections were HA only without a steroid.

Did you do x-rays this time? Did you ask about injecting a steroid this time?

Did you vet do flexions today? Where was he sore?

You've talked about the ulcers before; but have you tried anything yet? If you choose not to scope (which is fine) most vets I know will advise to treat for at least a month to start with.

And am I understanding your post correctly? You made a barrel run 3 days in a row? Sounds like a Friday, Saturday, Sunday? Is that something you normally do most weekends?

Hello, I know you're not going to agree with this, but no we did not do x-rays this time. He did the flexions test and his hocks were still good to go, it was stifles that were bothering him. He injected a depo/ha shot. This vet doesn't think I need to treat for ulcers, he said I could do a daily digestive supplement or something, but hedoesn't think I need to treat him with omeprazole at this time. 

Yes, I will disagree with your vet. Because I've had a horse (Red) that flexed perfectly fine on flexions but had VERY advanced fusion in his hock. Vet was shocked when we first did the x-rays because he didn't hardly let on at all during flexions.

Flexions are extremely important but so is other diagnostic testing.