bone spavin

[lindaf]

Has anyone had experience with bone spavin AKA osteoarthritis of the hocks or degenerative joint disease? I'm hoping to hear about successful resolution of the lameness with the passage of time. This is not a performance/show horse.

Thanks,
Linda

PS: I'll be back online Monday night. I'm going to Amarillo for a Clinton Anderson clinic.

[Michelle Clarke]

About halfway down this page is a good paragraph on Oseoarthritis (which a spavin is catagorized as):

aloeveraforhorses.com/treatments.htm

As a sidenote, Aloe is being looked into by vets for digestive disorders and ulcers, and not holistic vets, but the western med type. One of my vets asked me about it yesterday. I have used Aloe gel for many reasons, mostly topical and use it as a carrier on wounds and muscle stuff for other essential oils.

You might also consider white millet in the horses diet, a medicinal dose of 1 cup/day until improvement, then you can go down to 1/4 cup as you decrease. Millet is the highest source of silica, which is needed for bone and repair. I have great success with it for splints. Have a horse here that had two matching splints from two years ago, and on only 1/4 cup for about 3 months, they started to receed and now you have to know they were there to see them. I grind it daily along with flax and add it into the feed.

Michelle

[lindaf]

Hi Michelle,

My vet's opinion is that you don't want to stop the cartilage degeneration because that will prolong the fusing of the lower hock bones. He thinks the degeneration has already progressed past the point of restoring the joint. It hurts me to think about it, but some of the treatments for this involve chemically and or surgically hastening the breakdown fo the cartilage. Those treatments are very painful for the horse, and I won't do that.

I'm a big fan of aloe for people as well as animals. Thanks for the article. I'll look into the millet also as I am grinding flax already.

Linda