Points On Navicular Disease Treatment

By Raymond White


This is a type of syndrome that mostly affects horses whereby the front foot bone and the tissues surrounding it becomes inflammated and degenerated. Severe navicular syndrome leads to lameness and the horse or the affected animal is unable to walk. There is no known cause of this syndrome however, there are different theories and some major causes of this disease. This editorial expounds further on navicular disease treatment.

Hoof care is basically the commonly used method of curing. It is however a subject of debate as for example corrective shoeing is only purposed to be beneficial for some time, as the effects are only temporal. Others debate that removing the shoes off the horses is the best treatment and best way to manage the disease as it will allow increased blood circulation in the foot.

Another major contributing factor is a poor hoof shape that is usually inherited. This is usually brought by poor trimming and poor shoeing of the hooves on the horses. Long toes on the other hand leads to compression of the bone whereby if the heel is low the navicular bone is strained and stressed from the tendons being strained and stressed as well.

There have been studies over the years showing that removing the shoes all the same can aid alleviate the symptoms of the syndrome. This is because the syndrome can be caused or have been found to be caused by wrong shoe selection as well as attachment. Successful trims have helped restore the hoof by reinstating it to its natural shape and angle.

The horses hooves keeps expanding and contracting so as to allow easy blood flow to the lower extremities. Therefore, when a shoe that is inflexible is fitted improperly onto the hoof, the blood flow is inhibited and the hoof is unable to work as intended. However, this is not to mean that the disease solely occurs due to the modern way of doing things as records show navicular degeneration even in the fossil record of early horses.

In this account it is important to point out that veins are more susceptible to compression as compared to arteries. As a result blood flowing to bone would be more obstructed as compared to the blood that is flowing from bone itself. This tends to cause pressure build up within that bone area. As that bone does not get sufficient nutrients due to the pressure and decreased blood supply so it extracts the nutrients from within.

Another contributing factor is the body weight. Horses that have heavy weight compared to the foot size ratio are susceptible to exhibiting the symptoms of the syndrome. The heavy body weight exerts more pressure onto the feet thus straining the tendons and the ligaments. This then affects the hooves causing the horse to develop the syndrome.

Experts that have over the years researched on this syndrome, have found a correlation between the toe fast landing walking technique on horses and the syndrome itself. Thus, they have concluded that the walking technique may actually be the leading cause of the syndrome. This technique results into tendon inflammation and bone alterations.




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