Making Sense of Laminitis
Michelle Anderson
February 1, 2013
Farriers and veterinarians discuss ways to work together to treat laminitis–a devastating hoof disease.
Farriers and veterinarians discuss ways to work together to treat laminitis–a devastating hoof disease.
When they are compromised due to disease processes such as laminitis, or poor internal hoof balance that leads to poor blood flow and overstressing of internal structures, putting the feet in comfortable alignment and applying massage helps them heal
Angular and flexural limb deformities in foals are concerns, to be sure, but they’re not necessarily kisses of death. At the recent Bluegrass Laminitis Symposium, Ric Redden, DVM, founder of the International Equine Podiatry Center in Versailles, Ky.
Working to correct low heels when they begin to develop is far more successful than waiting until the horse has had no heel for a long time. Low-heeled conformation is not healthy and can compromise soundness in the short or long term.
“Owners and trainers worldwide have the feeling that every veterinarian and every farrier have years of experience and vast knowledge about laminitis and podiatry (foot care). Unfortunately, this is not the case,” said Ric Redden, DVM, founder of
When you’re talking about evaluating a horse’s foot, a radiograph or X ray can tell you a whole lot more than just whether there’s a fracture or not. When the radiograph is taken to show soft tissue detail as well as bone, it can provide tons of info
Venograms have added to our knowledge of laminitis and other common foot problems, in large part because for the first time we can see the structural components of the vascular supply to the horse’s foot.
“The venogram is the ticket to fixing all those laminitis cases you’ve been missing,” Amy Rucker, DVM, said at the Bluegrass Laminitis Symposium (held Jan. 25-28 in Louisville, Ky.). Rucker, a practitioner with Midwest Equine in Columbia, Mo., discus
When a horse has a foot problem, effective communication bewteen farrier, vet, and owner is key.
When it comes to laminitis, everyone’s got a pet theory–their favorite explanation of why it occurs, how to prevent it, and/or how to treat it. The reason we have these theories is because research hasn’t yet been able to give us solid, unassailable
Ask 10 people what a healthy hoof should look like, and you’ll likely get 10 variations of an answer.
Baker, who is both a veterinarian and a farrier, presented a discussion of six case studies and what they taught him not to do in treating laminitis. He began by describing the following common causes of treatment failure.
Untreated white line disease can undermine your horse’s feet, causing lameness and coffin bone instability.
There isn’t yet a complete answer to how laminitis works and how to treat it, although researchers in several countries are working on it. D’Arpe characterizes the current state of laminitis knowledge by comparing it to the early stages of fracture
The reason for this is that equine podiatry is still in its infancy, and while there are a lot of very intelligent people working to better understand the horse’s foot, it’s still a very complex structure with no real analogue in the human physique,
“How do we use the palmar angle (the angle the wings of the coffin bone make with the ground) to influence the mechanics (of the foot)?” asked Ric Redden, DVM, host of the 16th annual Bluegrass Laminitis Symposium and founder of the International Equine Podiatry Center in Versailles, Ky.
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