I have a gelding that seems to have chronic back soreness. On xrays he has a few vertebrae that are close but not touching  I want surgery to be a last resort. We injected it and a week later hes sore to the touch. I need some ideas of things to do to help the soreness!!!

The vet completely ruled out kissings spine? Just because they aren't touching doesn't mean they aren't close enough to bother him... I am no expert on it though. I think the only thing that actually will correct that is surgery. Otherwise...I'd focus on lots of massage, Back on Track as often as you can, maybe even use ice boots on his back as well??,  and obviously correct saddle fit and proper padding. Hope you figure it out!

My gelding didn't have cronic back problems, but he did get a sore back. There were 2 reasons for his sore back. One was the sports saddle & the second was his feet. Got a new regular saddle for him & put him in a wedge shoe & he was fine. Not suggesting you do this for your horse, but this is what I experienced with my guy. Hope you find your guys problem & he feels better soon

how are you palpating the back to check for soreness? If you get the slightest bit of finger nail, even unintentionally, some horses freak out.

Bump

I can mash on his lower back and he squats down trying to get away from it.  

Have you had his hocks checked?  I have had a couple that would show back soreness when they were needing their hocks injected.

I went through a year of this with my horse and 3 vets. Long story short - second vet recommended KS surgery. Luckily surgeon said he didn’t agree. 

Third vet injected both hocks in 3 places, and he’s been 100% ever since. 

Two prior vets ruled out hocks....

I used to have my horse's back injected every year.  Last year it didn't help his back.  What to do?!  I finally tried PEMF treatments, and they did the trick.  I no longer have him injected, and he is doing great so far.

Ours with KS has some that touch and some that are just close - we think the ones that are close bother him more due to them banging on each other when he sits to turn a steer or a barrel.

he has gotten along beautifully with injections.  At 14 we decided if he got along good with injections once a year we weren’t going to spend the $$ on surgery.  Our vet also said some still need injections event after the ligament release surgery.

I would be a second opinion though because it may be like others have said, hocks, feet, etc.  

When we had ours looked at he was actually the soundest horse they’d had in the clinic in some time, nothing else was showing up.  But he was getting back sore when we roped and blowing up in the pattern.  We xray’d the spot that was getting sore and there they were.  Has made a 200% turnaround roping, still blown up on the pattern - but we don’t think that’s entirely related.

Angles and breakovers on feet can make them sore in their backs... if they aren't stood up enough and pulled back, I had one that would get sore quick if he was off

Sometimes back soreness can also be a result of compensating for sore stifles, hocks, SI joint and/or poor shoeing. Have a lameness exam performed by a reputable Vet that is used to working with performance horses.

My horse recently developed this after 6 weeks at the trainers.  My Vet felt it was stifles, not hocks, not SI, not shoeing.  We injected stifles and he said to give the horse a couple weeks off for soreness to subside (we added Methacarbonyl tablets daily).  Two weeks later he was back with Trainer and Trainer says he feels like a different horse.

I have one we went through the ringer with trying to figure out what the issue was. She won't lope to the right in a nice frame, lopes more up and down in the front but doesn't hop in the back, carries her head high, and shoulders hard even just trying to lope down the long side of the arena straight. Sometimes when I ask for the lope she just stops and refuses forward, has backed in circles to the right. But she lopes fine on a lunge line or in the pasture. We tried treating it as brattiness and changed a lot of tack and riding styles,tried the EPM route, we tried hocks, we thought it was her weak stifles, no fix. After months of a strengthening program her stifles are great but she still doesn't like to lope to the right. Some days she's almsot ok, some days she's bad. I tried 2 vets, neither felt KS was a consideration, which is what I wanted to check first given that she's only not ok when a rider is on.

A friend of mine was doing a Magna-wave session on my horses and pulled out her thermal camera and low and behold a white hot spot right on the spine, about 6 inches back from her withers. No indications anywhere else on her body. Which was a big relief because I felt justified in my KS theory and had something to go off of with the new vet. She's a case where it doesn't bother her until a certain level of weight is applied. Her old rider I think was about 90lbs at most and it was most likely not enough to reveal what was going on. And now here I am more than double that and we have problems. So my vet thinks if I just get back to my old weight and we inject her and I jsut ride her like they recommend doing with KS horses, she should be fine. I'm not suggesting you have a weight issue, but it could be a similar situation where they just aren't irritated until weight is applied, becuase my mare's aren't touching either, they're just super close. But when weight is applied they shift just enough. Since she rides rounded with her back lifted really nicely to the left they don't irritate because it widens the space, but because she tries to hollow out to the right and stays that way, she's just learned that is when the pain happens and tries to hollow out more, refusing to collect and lift her back. So it's just a matter of battling the pain to where we can get her to relax and ride correctly, so that we can just maintenance injectwhen necessary and correct riding should keep it maintained better as well. She gets the PHT blanket a lot and DiO on it when out in the pasture, regular Magna-Wave and chiro monthly as well 

Is she downhill?