4/29/2023 1 Comment Week 9: Going to the VetThis week we decided to take Marty to the vet because he still didn't seem quite like himself. Me, my mom, and my trainer Melody decided that Marty wasn’t progressing as well as we wanted to decide we needed to get him scoped and chiropractic. Thankfully there is a large animal veterinary office in Davie County, so we didn't have to trailer him far. Because I was in school when we took him to the vet (Tuesday) my dad helped Melody load Marty onto the trailer and take him. Marty wasn't behaving very well because he couldn't eat for a full 12 hours before he got scoped. This is simply so the vet can see everything in the horse's stomach clearly and doesn't miss anything! Doctor Castro saw Marty and was his chiropractor and scoped him, and he was ulcer free! Castro said it was possible Marty never even had ulcers. So if he didn’t have ulcers what was the problem? Two days later we took Marty to get x-rays of his back and he was diagnosed with severe kissing spine disease, which is known for mimicking the symptoms of ulcers. Kissing spine is when a horse's vertebrae shift to where they are touching which causes them to painfully rub and grind. The disease is typically diagnosed between the ages 5 and 10, but Castro said Marty has probably had it for at least a year and it had just been progressively getting worse without us knowing. Typically kissing spine only occurs in two vertebrae, but if affected four vertebrae in Marty’s back. This means he is going to have to go through a longer surgery than normal, but thankfully the surgery is minimally invasive, which means it will have very little muscle damage. To avoid muscle damage Doctor Castro will do multiple small incisions instead of one of two big ones. He will be operated on both sides. Marty’s surgery is May 9th.
1 Comment
5/3/2023 06:20:03 am
This is interesting to read about! Thank you for sharing!
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