Posted by on 15. December 2024

I am increasingly being referred patients to osteopathy who have undergone all instances, diagnostic options and therapies. Unrideable, is the diagnosis of large clinics, after thousands of euros of diagnostics. In my opinion, unridable means that even large clinics have no idea what they are dealing with and how to treat these patients.
Because modern veterinary medicine is at a loss if it can’t see anything on the X-ray, ultrasound or scintigraphy.
Often any changes in diagnostics are used as causes, but they didn’t play a role in my own treatment afterwards.

The problem with modern veterinary medicine

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It treats symptoms that it can make visible, but not the actual illnesses. It no longer recognizes connections, it no longer sees the patient as a whole. What cannot be seen is not there and vice versa. What you can see must be the cause. The fact that such a body is more complex, that nerve tracts and fascia play an immense role, especially in movement disorders, cannot and must not be the case.

I would therefore like to present a very interesting case here.

Case study Lissy

Lissi

Lissy came to me for osteopathy this winter in February. Also as unrideable. The owners and their two daughters decided that they wanted to keep Lissy, regardless of whether she would ever be able to walk or be ridden again without lameness. Common advice was to sell her or put her to sleep. I would like to praise the fact that the two daughters of the family were instrumental in the decision to keep the mare in the family, even though they had the choice of getting a new horse. A big compliment for that, you don’t often find an attitude like that anymore.

Anamnesis

She showed severe lameness in the front left already at the walk with a clearly shortened 2nd supporting leg phase. Her canter was stiff. There was only a slight flexion of the large joints of the front and hind extremities during movement (carpus/knee joint). On the right hand, the horse holds its head strongly outwards when turning.
The vet diagnosed lameness in the front right. There was a horn column in the front left hoof dorsally, which is why I first performed a median palmar nerve anesthesia to rule out the effect of this horn column. A conduction anesthesia was negative.

Lissi lahm vorher


As a minor note. This is not the original lameness. This is the lameness already after about 1/2 year of therapy and already with significant improvement compared to the initial stage. Unfortunately we have not found any videos from December before.

Lissy is reluctant to ride and bites her chest. She is also reluctant to be groomed and snaps when touching the shoulder areas on the left and right. When being led, she breaks away and gallops off. And please, don’t always dismiss such behavior as disobedience. As we noticed during the therapy, Lissy’s behavior improved significantly during the therapy without any further educational measures.

According to the owner, the animal had been hit on the left bow joint and had painless scarring in the area of the bow joint.

Much more interesting for me was the history of the riding style.
Because the horse was closely tied and ridden forward by the riding instructor. And the daughters were encouraged to push this heavy, baroque-type horse forwards. Lameness also first appeared during a riding lesson, after a cracking sound that was audible to the rider and bystanders.

Osteopathy and physical therapy

Lissy’s first treatment was osteotherapy.
Due to the massive tension in the strong musculature, it was not possible to completely release C7/TH1 in the first few treatments; several treatments were necessary. The massive muscle masses pose a particular problem in osteotherapy for baroque-type horses, and treatment is much more difficult here than with more delicate horse types.

In addition, the scar on the bow joint and the bow joint were treated with juniper oil and therapeutic ultrasound.

The position of the hooves was also corrected, as the mare was standing very steeply with high heels and a lot of weight on the toes.

Saddle was checked, but proved to be unproblematic. Teeth were done and without any particular findings.

Riding therapy

After the initial treatments, we started riding therapy despite the persistent lameness.
The main aim of my riding lessons is to correct the rider’s seat and balance, his influence with the hand and the regulation of a rhythm that suits the horse and its level of training.
I attach great importance to the fact that the rider does not force a connection with the horse’s mouth. Horses ridden incorrectly in this way do not seek any contact with the hand, which is why I favor a rein without a direct connection to the mouth in the early stages.
This also encourages the horse to “carry itself” freely and prevents passive uprightness in hand. Every horse should also achieve balance without the help of the rider. Balance through the rider’s assistance alone is not desirable.

And osteopathy without a simultaneous change to a faulty riding style is always an interesting source of income for the therapist, but not very promising in terms of the patient’s recovery.

In horses with problems in the trunk-carrying apparatus – blockages between C7 and Th1 are always also blockages of the serratus ventralis cervicalis and thoracalis muscles – the thorax sinks between the shoulder blades, the front legs are close together, the horse appears downhill, there is little width in the gaits and in extreme cases a hopping, stiff canter. Real uprightness is not possible.
The cause of such a blockage is often the exaggeration of the pace and a hand that works backwards.

Slowly emerging successes of osteopathy and the osteopathically correct way of riding

Perhaps pictures speak better than a thousand words.
And please, no comments about rein contact, because we don’t want that at the moment. And of course there is room for improvement, but that’s not the point here. The point is that the lameness has almost completely disappeared.
And the two riders managed this wonderfully with a lot of patience, balance and their own progress.

Lissi nach 10 Monaten Therapie

Perhaps a few words after all. Compared to the first video, the horse carries the thorax much better. She is slowly beginning to seek forward contact, the neck is carried much more calmly. The lameness was more noticeable on the right hand at the beginning of the therapy and more noticeable on the left hand towards the end. I have shown the worse sides in both cases in the video.

I hope that such therapeutic successes will also make veterinarians in universities and large clinics aware of the effectiveness of osteotherapy and that such life-critical diagnoses as unrideability will perhaps first be discussed with well-trained osteotherapists in the future. In the interests of the affected animals.