So... it's been a week and two days since Dan got his hiney injected. Kelli and I decided to have a shockwave party. Like a botox party, but probably more expensive ;) Ha! We could have done Tuesday, but she wanted Marvin to have a few days after he got his hind shoes and wedges pulled. And because we need electricity... we had to ride here instead of at Ashland.
So Kelli came and we rode the boys in the arena. I had pulled all the jumps out and double drug it so it was in good shape. While we were tacking up I mentioned to Kelli that I was slightly obsessing over his muscle atrophy at his scapulas and neck base. I know it's been there for awhile, but I do feel like the suprascapular muscles have gotten more atrophied recently. So... is it because he's so sore in his hind end that he's just pulling himself along with his forehand instead of engaging his thoracic sling? Is it because his neck arthritis is bothering his so much that it's causing nerve impingement creating the neurogenic atrophy? Is it because when we injected his nerve roots, we killed the nerve and now have neurogenic atrophy? And ... what do I do about it? I mean, I guess all I can do is focus on his pillar work and riding him biomechanically correctly and see what happens. But I suppose I could also consider treating him with electroacupuncture and even pneumoacupuncture to help improve the muscling there. So.. yeah, I'm not sure. But Kelli mentioned that perhaps I need to really focus on riding him up in the withers, engaging his core, vs just letting him go long and low. We're still slightly in disagreement with our thoughts on the long and low. And we're probably both right. But maybe she is right in the sense that he's pretty good about disengaging his brachiocephalic now so perhaps I should focus on more lift. So... when we started to ride I had that in mind.
I did a lap each way of pillar walking with lots of pillar 3, trying to build up that muscle. And because I had drug the arena parallel to the short side there was ridges that he was walking across. You can REALLY hear the toe drag that way. Sigh. But I do think it was better than it has been. I got on after and we did our walk work with lots of turn on the haunches to try to encourage sit and lift. Then we did some slow walk. Then we went to trotting and I tried to do lots of transitions and lots of slow trot - not a jog, and not a collected trot, but... oh... what did Rana call it? His controlled trot.. I don't know. I did a little bit of sitting work and we did some lateral work. He feels pretty swingy in his trot half passes! We did some cantering too and he didn't swap at all this ride! He did start to fatigue but I asked for a downward before he fell out of it. Though he did collapse to a halt in one or two of them instead of a trot. I tried to do a few transitions and his upwards and downwards were getting a hair better. I did one shallow serpentine to the right but before I went to the left, Kelli mentioned that he was starting to look a little tired so perhaps I should just do a serpentine with flexions/counter flexions vs the actual serpentine. Good idea. She also pointed out that he was falling in on his right shoulder. Ahh... I could feel him leaning on my right leg but she's right.. it's not so much that he needs more bend but more than he needs to stand up square on his shoulders. So the counter bend actually straightened him up and squared him up. So we'll play with that some more. I got a nice canter and then called it quits. He was definitely starting to feel fatigued and when we were doing our trot work, a few times when I switched from tracking right to tracking left, he felt lame behind. It was only a few steps and then he'd work out of it, and it wasn't every time we changed directions, but.. it was there. So... baby steps. I'm going to have to work real hard at controlling myself and not getting too excited by how good he feels and pushing him too fast.
We hacked back to the house although I did get off at the culdesac to give him a break. Then he hung out while I shockwaved Marvin and then he got shockwaved. Kelli held his front legs back a bit so I could really get into the base of his neck for his lower cervicals. Then I did both stifles because... why not!? I do wonder if him not being on previcox is making his stifles and/or neck a little sore again. I also shocked his SI joints and LS joint. He is still pretty goosey there. I'm not sure if it's clipper burn or sun burn... or just still sore from the months of being sore there? I'll probably adjust him this weekend to see if that helps. And maybe do some acupuncture or K-taping too. Then I'll shock him again in 2 weeks.
But yeah.. I'm kind of excited. It's so nice to have my horse back. :) :)
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