What to do next....

I've spent a lot of time thinking in the past 36 hours. I want to do what is best for this sweet boy.

If I had the money, I would go ahead and try the polyglycan injections. But, they are $100 each and it is recommended that I do a heavy loading dose of one injection once a week for 4 weeks. Then, if that seemed to make a significant difference, to follow up with nutraceuticals and see if he maintained the improvement. But, I don't have the money for the injections at this time though I will likely start him on a joint supplement. I will also get a plan from the physical therapist to help build up the muscles in his hips slowly and easily. This should also help a lot to stabilize the joints. Dr. Boulton said the the arthritic changes in Louie's hips are quite mild right now. So, if he does respond well to joint supplements, he may be able to be maintained pain free for quite a long time.




Dr. Brown and Dr. Boulton really feel that Louie's hip problem is something he was born with and has been dealing with all his life. It was just when I started riding him, I was speeding things up just hard enough and fast enough that he couldn't cope with it and his hip got really inflamed. Though I never had ridden him even close to what I would call hard, it was still more then he had ever done before. Louie's previous owner had told me that Louie did "some kind of gait" but didn't know what it was. Both vets think it is more likely that Louie was not gaiting but rather his way of traveling to protect his hips. I do know when Louie showed the first signs of trouble for me, I too thought he must be doing the "some kind of gait" I'd been told about. That is until I kept riding him and increasing the amount of time trotting and Louie's patella's started locking up on any hill. That was when I knew we had a problem and he had not been doing any kind of gait.

Today Louie was actually looking much better. When he trotted around the paddock, there was no real obvious signs of lameness. He is still swinging his legs around when he backs up. There is no rush to make any big decisions right now. I have my horse to ride. And though she is 19 years old, she is still fit and healthy and can do all the things I want to do at this time. So, I'll just take it a day at a time for now and do what I can to improve Louie's condition.