Horse Arthritis Treatment

Horse arthritis, also known as degenerative join disease, it is progressive joint inflammation due to trauma or wear and teat of the joint cartilage. Older horses are most at risk of this condition, and the risk increases with every passing year.

Learn how to identify horse arthritis and you can attack the problem before it gets worse. There are 3 types of horse arthritis:

• The Obvious kind - the joints have been traumatized or infected, and it is causing your horse lameness.
• The Sneaky kind - The joints are not sore initially, and there is no lameness. However, this does not mean that arthritis is not progressing. You need to look for the signs so that you can help your horse earliest possible.

Watch out for these signs:

• slight puffiness in lower leg joints
• stiff,choppy gait when you first begin work but improves when he warms up.
• reluctance to perform maneuvers which comes easily for him, such as stops and collection.

Find a puffy joint? Then do the soundness check, below:

If the lower joints of all four legs are swollen, and the cannon bone (shin) areas are swollen too, the swelling is more likely to be edema due to an underlying health problem, such as poor circulation or hypoproteinemia.

Perform a soundness check. Use the guidelines below. If your horse is lame, call your veterinarian TODAY-synovitis in that affected joint may be escalating, resulting in joint degeneration.

If there's no hint of lameness, gently probe the joint with your fingers, including the puffy part, while watching your senior horse for signs of pain, such as a wringing tail, flinch, or snatching the leg away from you. If you find any sign of tenderness, call your veterinarian TODAY- your horse's synovitis is on the move.