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pestilenttempest · Jan 6, 2020 10:33 PM

My Appaloosa mare was just diagnosed with a dropped hip by her chiro. So anyway this mare is 100% sound, you can’t see the dropped hip in person it had to be palpated. It is an old injury (by my account she did it when she injured her shoulder at 3 months).

Now she can do poles and cavaletti at trot/lope. I was riding consistently before she was diagnosed and the only thing that shows on her is a trip behind rarely. Think riding 5 days a week and she tripped once in a two week period. She had been getting more cow-hocked behind which reading online is from the hip injury.

Now I’ve never dealt with hip injuries. Knee/ankle/stifle etc I’ve done a hundred times over successfully. I’ve been trying to research online but I’m finding very limiting resources and the majority of the cases have the horses dead lame.

I’m trying to decide if I’m going to be able to keep her good enough to ride in, say, a trail riding association or whether I’m giving up on her and breeding her ^_^

Just wondering if anybody has any experience with a dropped hip and if the horse was usable afterwards or not. Or what kind of maintenance was required to keep them sound long-term.

Looper · Jan 7, 2020 3:36 AM

Do you mean the femoral head is popping out of the socket?

I have no experience with horses except for basic health info and handling from tech school--but exercise, especially non weight bearing like swim therapy, hot and cold packing, massage and passive range of motion along with any necessary meds for arthritis are mainstays for keeping a cat or dog going with bad hips. Maintaining muscle mass helps stabilize the joint. If you let them slack, they get stiff. They don't have to carry a human along with thier own weight though :(

Do they ever remove the head of the femur in horses for severe hip luxation?

pestilenttempest · Jan 7, 2020 5:15 PM

The top part of the hip is broken off. Like you can feel the bottom of the hip but not the top. The only thing that would allow me to see into that section of her body because she’s so thick is a bone scan so 5k+ and that’s currently out of budget.

I know they sometimes do surgery on them but 15k+! ^_^ I actually just talked to one of my jumper friends and she had one she maintained to 3ft with magnawave, and this mare is going to be getting chiro/massage/magnawave + shock therapy as needed.

I’ve never seen one that has been sound before, which is why I was wondering if anybody else had. She’s perfect otherwise so even if I couldn’t do what I wanted with her I would breed her. (We owned her great/grandfather and I rode him as a child).

I actually have an older horse on equioxx she will probably be going on. But as she is worked she gets better through her stifles and I think she’ll be fine with chiro and a low-end sport. Just don’t want to cripple my baby ^_^ this horse literally lays down on command And let’s me chill with her in a halter anywhere even though she only has about 60/90 days on her inconsistently.

AHayesHorses · Jan 8, 2020 5:54 AM

Hey my appy mare has a dropped hip! It's not broken or damaged in any way, it literally just shifted down. The chiropractor that i had out showed me two adjustments to do for her. Hers is visibly noticeable. But with the adjustments it is slowly working it's way back to where it needs to be. She also had a pinched elbow and poll on the same side but the other side was completely unaffected which shocked the chiro. My girl is perfectly sound regardless. Good luck with your girl! I'll see if i can find a picture of her hips for visual reference.

AHayesHorses · Jan 8, 2020 6:32 AM

-Blue line is her midline, which is noticeably shifted because of her hip dropping,
-Green Line is her right hip which is unaffected and is in the proper location
-The Red Line is her left hip, the one that has dropped which is obviously in the wrong position. Chiropractor said it was most likely caused by a "misstep" probably in pasture frolicking around. (Probably when she was beating the snot out of my sister's mare for having a blanket on 8-| )
-Yellow line is the slope between her hips

I don't have any current pictures since my mare is wintering at my friend's house an hour away but i will get some updated shots next time i go see her :) Her hip has been like this since i got her in summer 2018 but i didn't notice until late summer 2019. Has never affected her in any way. She is my barrel/speed horse and she runs just fine with it and is fine on trails too.

pestilenttempest · Jan 8, 2020 12:43 PM

So this is my filly pre chiro. I cannot slightly see a difference in her hips but not much.

She has enough muscle on her hip that’s it’s actually super difficult to pinpoint exactly where her hip bones are. Her left side I can easily find the bottom piece, but the top piece isn’t missing. We’re not 100% sure whether that piece is rotated or broken off, as we can’t palpate it and she’s so muscles I’d basically have to do a bone scan to see anything.

Like the bottom of both hips are aligned, but the top of the left hip isn’t there? Ugh.

Thank you so much for the picture! I’m glad to see that your girl isn’t affected, it gives me hope that with my chiro I can keep her going. Now I just got to figure out any shoeing that might help her ^_^

AHayesHorses · Jan 8, 2020 5:32 PM

Wowzas! Love all the muscle on that appy butt :x I can see a very very slight drop on the right visually, but you wouldn't see it if you weren't looking for it. I drew some lines on the picture for reference!

pestilenttempest · Jan 8, 2020 8:36 PM

Yea, he said her pelvis was completely twisted as well but he fixed it.

She’s been on pasture rest for several weeks now and I’m not going to be doing anything with her until he returns to work on her again sometime in the next 2 weeks.

Im hoping her pelvis stayed where it belongs & she isn’t sore so I can start working her again. I know her stifles always feel much better when she’s worked.

Also thanks! I love big butts. She’s out of a stallion called The Secret Pardon who is a huge hunk. She’s the first one that’s completely mine (I owned the mare, chose the stud, etc) so I love this mare to death and honestly like I said before if her hip becomes a problem she’ll just be retired and be my pasture pet/broodmare. hopefully I wouldn’t have to embryo transfer for her safety but who really knows.

I’ll get a better pic of her post chiro tomorrow if I can remember. It’s really hard to get pictures of her though because she’s always trying to follow me. She’s shifting to the left in that picture to try and see what I’m doing. Silly girl.

pestilenttempest · Jan 10, 2020 1:55 AM

This is a better pic of her hip. I got her back legs as even as possible. This is after pelvis adjustment.

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