Louie is happy to be back home and hanging out with his herd mates. He is still lame on the right rear but not looking too bad overall. And he is feeling good and running around. The only time I see the locking patella is when he backs up. Then I see it in both hind legs. You can see the lameness when he is trotting but I am not seeing the locking patella when he is moving forward, only when backing.

Jennifer Brooks, the physical therapist, called me today and we had a very nice conversation. I really like her and what she says makes sense. Jennifer feels that there is something going on with Louie in the pelvic region. When she examined Louie, he had heat and discomfort, as well as a sweaty spot on his TFL (Tensor Fasciae Latae) muscle. And quite a bit of muscle atrophy of the area. Jennifer is concerned that he as a torn muscle. Or even a possible fracture of the pelvic reigon. So, she is reluctant to set me up with a physical therapy program when not knowing what is actually wrong. She would also like to see Louie confined to a smaller area to keep him from running around too much until we rule out any torn muscles or possible fractures. We don't want to end up doing more harm then good. Jennifer was a bit disappointed that that Myhre Clinic did not ultrasound his pelvic region while he was there. I guess she had called and told them she suspected a problem in the pelvic region. I'm not sure if I'm disappoined or not. I am certainly frustrated that a problem was not diagnosed. But, as I did not know what to expect from Louie being used for the teaching conference, I don't know if I could have expected more or not. I will say that there were quite a few horses being looked at and from what I could see, they simply ran out of time to do any further diagnostic work. Louie was brought in for his intermittent locking patella and he did have his hocks and stifle thoroughly examined.

I also talked to my vet today and told her all that I know about Louie's history with this problem and as much as I know about what was done at Myhre clinic. I set up an appointment for Wednesday morning with Dr. Lund.

I called Myhre clinic and asked that they send all the information they had on Louie to my clinic so Dr. Lund would have it for our appointment on Wednesday. They were going to do this anyway but it might not have been by Wednesday. I then called Jennifer Brooks and asked if she would email her finding and observations to Dr. Lund also. I then got a call from Dr. Myhre. He seems to feel that it is too soon to take Louie for another examination. Louie's hock was injected at Myhre Clinic and it is too soon to tell if that is going to help Louie or not. And I am not really clear on why Dr. Myhre even thinks there is any problem with Louie's hock. Or why he didn't really seem too interested in the fact that Louie has heat and swelling and muscle atrophy in his right hip area. I am going to ask Dr. Lund if she will call Dr. Myhre and talk to him. But, honostly, even if Louie does start to improve over the next few weeks, I will not at all be convinced it is due to the hock injection as a few weeks rest can improve a whole lot of things that might be wrong. Especially since nothing was done to positively identify where the problem is such as nerve blocking and nothing was found on either the radiographs or ultrasounds that would indicate a problem in Louie's hock.

Ok class, can we all spell F R U S T R A T E D .............