Bone Scan

[Rides 2 Far <rides2far@juno.com>]

I know I'm way late on this one but I'm trying to clear my box at the end
of a busy week and just read the thread.

I had two scans run back in about 1990.  I think they were around $350
each at University of Tennessee.  My horse had been slightly off for some
time (big Appaloosa, first horse I tried to compete on).  Nothing showed
on testers or flexing, x-rays were negative.  They scanned only his foot.
 What they showed me was an image of his hoof with a very "hot spot"
(cluster of dots) on the coffin bone.  After looking at that they went
back and rechecked the x-rays and decided the coffin bone looked "moth
eaten".  

Here's what you need to consider.  All that $350 did was satisfy our
curiosity. It went nowhere as far as making it better.  We had very
little money at the time and I remember telling Bill that I would spend
up to what a new horse would cost, then I'd stop.  They felt that his
coffin bone *possibly* had an infection.  Looking back I'm pretty sure
whatever it was bruising was caused by improper shoeing since I'd
recently switched to a really cheap farrier (learned that lesson really
well) and had been doing *lots* of miles (because at that time I actually
believed what I read in training articles). 

They wanted to remove the entire sole of his hoof, scrape the bone, then
I would have to spend hundreds of dollars on bandaging materials until
the entire sole regrew.  This was a horse who paw a fence down if you put
him in a confined area. He also rode gates and stood on the crossbars of
doors. Besides that he was an escape artist who untied ropes and worked
intricate latches.  I knew removing the sole was out of the question.  I
took "plan B" which was a month of heavy antibiotics, then we did another
$350 scan.  I don't even remember the results of that one.  By then I had
hit $1,000 and I turned him out for a year.  After that he was fine, but
during his year off I'd gotten my first Arab and never went back.   I had
a sneaking feeling that if I'd turned him out to begin with I'd the
results would have been the same.  For this horse I thought the bone scan
was a darned expensive way to appease my curiosity.  

By the way, yes his poop was radioactive waste, and the people who
cleaned his stall had to wear full hazardous waste suits.  He had one of
those little symbols for "radioactive" on his stalldoor and wasn't
allowed on the road for 24 hours.  I sort of scared myself because I sat
on the floor outside his stalldoor all day and then found out a week or
two later I was pregnant with Josie.  Must have affected her, she was
born with that damaged gene that makes you want to do endurance. >g<

Angie
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