Vet Recheck

 Good thing I rode! Thursday morning was rainy and icky and the arena was a swamp! Plus I had the migraine from heck on Wed. I took 3 prescription meds, two ibuprofen, and finally nightquil! I ended up puking twice at my last farm, despite having to adjust 4 horses. So I was not feeling very good Thursday morning anyways. So... I just did things around the house until it was time to go. Which was fairly early anyways. I was going to hose Dan's legs off so they wouldn't be nasty for Keelin, but... when I tried to turn on the water, the pipes sprayed me in the face. And it was COLD!!! So dangit. Oh well. We went and picked up Atlas first and then headed to Aiken. 

Keelin watched him trot and canter briefly because the footing was sloppy and it was drizzling. She thought he looked great. She did an acupuncture scan and thought he was still a little sore over his LS and sacroiliac joints and lumbar area, so she suggested that I acupuncture and adjust the tar out of him. We also x-rayed his feet and basically... 

Front Left: Perfect, even at 4 weeks

Front Right: the bony alignment of P1, P2, and P3 is just off...like broken back. It's not even that his angles are negative in the coffin bone... but the whole column is off. Which is how it has been. And his medial/lateral balance was slightly off too. BUT... Keelin suggested leaving it alone since he was doing well and the last time we added wedges, we made him worse!

Right and Left Hind: Not terrible but slightly negative angles. Long toe. Keelin said that she thought that if we fix the negative angles, we'll help his stifle, but worsen his suspensories. She was not a fan of the slide plate with studs that Freddie had done and said to either put him back in the Denoix, and if we can't get those, to either try him barefoot or just in a regular keg shoe. That way we could shorten the toe and hopefully that will help his suspensories and stifles. So we

'll see what Freddie says. 

So then we let Atlas go. And I asked about how I would know when to address the hocks and stifles again. So she said that since the rain had stopped we should flex him and see. So we did. And UGH. She started with the left hind, just a whole limb flexion. He was lame lame lame! Like 6/4 lame! Like almost 3 legged lame. :( What the heck?! Neither of us were expecting that! So then she flexed just the distal limb and he was still positive. Same for the other leg, although in my opinion the left hind was worse. So then she palpated the suspensories and he was still a little reactive. We ended up going ahead  and injected his hocks, because... I'd worry otherwise! She said there was reason to do it, although we could certainly try and hold off. But nope.. just do it! I'll also bemer his suspensories as soon as my leg wraps come in. Hopefully soon! 

So she sedated him and scrubbed him and then got her sterile gloves on. Dan decided then that he needed to see what the noise was. He picked his head up, perked his ears, and stared into the woods. Like a non-sedated horse. Like a normal horse. Like... how we wish he would be instead of being busy, but definitely not drunk enough for hock injections! Dangit! So he got more drugs. And then he was lovely!

So then we let him wake up and hauled home and we finally got home. It was a long day. He had to stay in his stall. Oh man. He hasn't been ridden since Tuesday... he was in a trailer all day today... This was not going to go well. But he was pretty darn perfect! He only kicked maybe once or twice in the morning. yay!

Good boy. So now we can hopefully ride Monday, although I doubt it. It'll probably be Tuesday after Freddie comes. But he was running amuck today and looked pretty sound. I also acupunctured him today too, so... fingers crossed! Oh, and the other plan is to start the adequan again. We'll also do Map-5 once a week for 3 weeks again and then every other week. I'll probably discontinue the pentosan and just do the Map 5 instead.