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 Extreme Veteran
Posts: 494
 
| I just took a 4 yr old in because I had a haunch it was KS because I spent money on every other part of the body and found nothing. Turns out there were 3 areas that were showing mild KS. The vet said that he has horses come in here with much worse xrays, yet do not show any symptoms. He said mine was something you would probably see in a 15 year olds xrays. My mare fits the symptoms of KS, but has anyone had a mild case look like full blown severe kissing spine symptoms of bolting, bucking fits, sore back etc.? We decided to inject before surgery- because it was mild- just to see if it made any difference in order to try and pinpoint our problem. |
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 Texas Taco
Posts: 7499
 
Location: Bandera, TX | I have two with KS xrays.
The first one showed crazy KS symptoms starting when she was four or five. She is retired before she even had a career. The other one (her half sister) never showed any symptoms, but she has enough other stuff wrong with her to make up for it….. Here lately I’m thinking to xray her spine again to look for changes as her new BS is more in line with KS…..
Dr. Honnas told me that if you take back xrays of 100 horses, about 40 will show KS on xrays, but only 4 will have actual symptoms. He said it makes for really tough recommendations when doing a pre-purchase exam…..
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 Not Afraid to Work
Posts: 4717
| Were the vertebrae's actually touching in the x-ray? |
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 494
| 2 were definitely touching. The 3rd he said he couldn't get a good angle to see if it was 100% touching, but said he feels confident the 3rd was touching also. |
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 My Heart Be Happy
Posts: 9159
Location: Arkansas | Bump |
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Not Afraid to Work
Posts: 4717
| epoh - 2017-02-09 2:39 PM
2 were definitely touching. The 3rd he said he couldn't get a good angle to see if it was 100% touching, but said he feels confident the 3rd was touching also.
Mild cases can usually be controlled by exercise. I do a lot of exercises with my gelding and has made a world of difference. |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 672
| stayceem - 2017-02-10 8:26 AM
epoh - 2017-02-09 2:39 PM
2 were definitely touching. The 3rd he said he couldn't get a good angle to see if it was 100% touching, but said he feels confident the 3rd was touching also.
Mild cases can usually be controlled by exercise. I do a lot of exercises with my gelding and has made a world of difference.
Yes. My mare's only pinch when moving a certain way. X-rays showed narrowing but no touching yet so we have been doing a lot of abdominal strengthening exercises. |
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 Midget Lover
Location: Kentucky | I wish I could post a pic of the x-rays, but I can't seem to access Photobucket today. My mare had three vertebrae touching. She was a mess. I didn't know it till I took her in, after going through 3 other vets. Finally the doc at Rood & Riddle suggested KS, took x-rays, and boom, there it was. I never even heard of KS before then. She is classic KS too. Bucked, balked, wouldn't lope to the left. I've injected her twice, since she's older and I opted not to do the surgery. Injections last about 6 months, and boy can I tell when she needs them again. She is 21 now, and I've retired her to (hopefully) broodmare duty. KS is hell to deal with. As far as I've read, you can band-aid them together, but they are going to fall apart one day. |
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 494
| veintiocho - 2017-02-10 9:08 AM
stayceem - 2017-02-10 8:26 AM
epoh - 2017-02-09 2:39 PM
2 were definitely touching. The 3rd he said he couldn't get a good angle to see if it was 100% touching, but said he feels confident the 3rd was touching also.
Mild cases can usually be controlled by exercise. I do a lot of exercises with my gelding and has made a world of difference.
Yes. My mare's only pinch when moving a certain way. X-rays showed narrowing but no touching yet so we have been doing a lot of abdominal strengthening exercises.
What type of exercises are you doing? |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 672
| epoh - 2017-02-10 10:05 AM
veintiocho - 2017-02-10 9:08 AM
stayceem - 2017-02-10 8:26 AM
epoh - 2017-02-09 2:39 PM
2 were definitely touching. The 3rd he said he couldn't get a good angle to see if it was 100% touching, but said he feels confident the 3rd was touching also.
Mild cases can usually be controlled by exercise. I do a lot of exercises with my gelding and has made a world of difference.
Yes. My mare's only pinch when moving a certain way. X-rays showed narrowing but no touching yet so we have been doing a lot of abdominal strengthening exercises.
What type of exercises are you doing?
Per vet, I was instructed to do these stretches:
https://www.horse-canada.com/canadian-horse-annual/core-strengthenin...
Under saddle- ground poles, cavelletti, lower dressage that teaches them to stretch and get a lower collection.
Here is another is another link
http://www.horsetalk.co.nz/2015/02/04/help-horse-kissing-spine-good... |
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Not Afraid to Work
Posts: 4717
| epoh - 2017-02-10 10:05 AM
veintiocho - 2017-02-10 9:08 AM
stayceem - 2017-02-10 8:26 AM
epoh - 2017-02-09 2:39 PM
2 were definitely touching. The 3rd he said he couldn't get a good angle to see if it was 100% touching, but said he feels confident the 3rd was touching also.
Mild cases can usually be controlled by exercise. I do a lot of exercises with my gelding and has made a world of difference.
Yes. My mare's only pinch when moving a certain way. X-rays showed narrowing but no touching yet so we have been doing a lot of abdominal strengthening exercises.
What type of exercises are you doing?
I do a lot of stretches per the other poster. I also do a long of long lining, side reins and German martingale work to make sure he is working well and a lot of it I do from the ground so he doesn't have my weight hindering him. I do a lot of ground poles also.
I have noticed massage really helps him. |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 1165
Location: California | Murphy - 2017-02-10 8:26 AM
I wish I could post a pic of the x-rays, but I can't seem to access Photobucket today. My mare had three vertebrae touching. She was a mess. I didn't know it till I took her in, after going through 3 other vets. Finally the doc at Rood & Riddle suggested KS, took x-rays, and boom, there it was. I never even heard of KS before then. She is classic KS too. Bucked, balked, wouldn't lope to the left. I've injected her twice, since she's older and I opted not to do the surgery. Injections last about 6 months, and boy can I tell when she needs them again. She is 21 now, and I've retired her to (hopefully) broodmare duty. KS is hell to deal with. As far as I've read, you can band-aid them together, but they are going to fall apart one day.
My mare was the same way. I spent YEARS trying to get to the bottom of her issues. Almost every vet told me I was paranoid and my mare was just spoiled. Then in 2015 she went from pulling checks to barely able to stand 4 days after winning her last check. Took her to 3 different vets; first one happened to be on one of her "good" days where to me she was obviously off and he called her sound, 2 one she was almost 3 legged lame again and had extensive x-rays that showed mild KS and front left coffin joint inflammation, we did 10 days of Bute and muscle relaxers to battle the extensive inflammation. Seemed ok for a bit but something kept nagging me. Took her to a closer mobile performance vet who also agreed something was off. Long story short after a few months we ended up injecting both navicular bursas and she is on a strict shoeing regimen. She went back to racing but didn't really fire as hard, then came up lame again.
The issue with kissing spine especially mild kissing spine is it usually ends up causing other issues somewhere from the horse over compensating for the pain even if you don't realize it at the time. |
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