Pages

Why Horses Go Through Navicular Pain

By Ida Dorsey


Navicular infections are perhaps the main reasons behind lameness of front limbs in many horses presently. These infections lead to navicular pain which mainly restricts the way the horses perform. The key reason why this occurs is not very clear because locating the exact basis of this pain has been difficult for many scholars. Over the past few years, many stallions have been diagnosed wrongly as many vets classify front limb distress as being caused by the navicular syndrome.

The navicular region is an area around the hooves of their anterior limbs. This area may sometimes be affected by an infection that causes irritation and therefore lameness which reduces their performance. This is however not a terminal illness and cannot disable a horse completely. It is just a syndrome that can easily be prevented or treated.

There are various signs that doctors look at to determine if the cause of lameness in a particular horse is as a result of navicular syndrome. Aside from the physical evidence that they are in pain, there also are some radiographic tests that must be done so that the correct medication is issued. This is because there are various other reasons apart from this that a horse may be in a painful experience.

In order to know if a horse is experiencing lameness, its owner will realize that it stumbles when moving and also lands in a weird way that puts more pressure on the hind legs. When this has been noticed, there are various physical tests that must be carried out. For example, hoof testers can be used to examine the animal and check out its reaction to infliction. The size of hooves can also tell if the animal is affected because the front ones are likely to be smaller because of the less pressure usually exerted on them.

Anesthesia may also be the perfect medicine used to verify if a stallion has this infection. Once the anesthesia is injected on the legs, they will become emotionless and the stallion will not be able to feel anything. This implies that they will not act weirdly since they are not troubled anymore. This can be proof that pain is possibly the main reason behind their unusual behavior.

After the illness has been correctly diagnosed, immediate medical measures must be taken. Correcting the shooing is the first thing that needs to be done. The caregiver must make sure that the shoe balances the hooves from all directions and that all of them have the same pressure. Later some medicines can be administered to the horse to ease the pain.

After the medicine has been administered, various physical examinations can be carried out on the stallion to help rise the blood stream of the front legs. Better blood stream will help the stallion to have better equilibrium that will apply the same weight on all legs. These exercises must be done for an hour each day.

Not all horses respond to treatments the same way. Some of them may even resist all the ones mentioned above and in such a case, other options should be considered. For example, the horse can undergo a surgical procedure that will help remove the unwanted ligaments that are the main cause of the nuisance.




About the Author:



0 comments:

Post a Comment