PLEASE CORRECT and ADVISE at will! We can all learn more!
This is very long-- please let me know if its too long!
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A regular person looks at Degenerative Joint Disease
or-- How I helped my horses feel better.
First, I will start off with what I know of the problem--
Degenerative Joint Disease.
This is another sort of name for arthritis, I believe, and
describes the situation where a joint is, well, degenerating,
ie, the cartilage is flaking off and its getting worse
possibly to the point where bone is eventually involved.
It is caused by many things, injuries to the joint- hard work
at young immature ages-- forced fast growth (ie too much grain
as a foal) -- old age.
It manifests itself as pain and/or inflammation in a joint
typically.
The joint is usually some cartilage covered bone interfaced
with synovial fluid and tendons and ligaments to help hold it
in place (very general description of joints.) This cartilage
can become nicked, ripped, torn or abraded with overwork,
injury or stretching of the tendons/ligaments that hold the
joint stable. Once this happens, friction at the joint can
occur that initiates inflammation that further irritates the
joint and can cause it to degrade further. Theoretically, if we
can somehow repair the nicks, rips etc, the joint will move
more smoothly and the pain will abate.
Until recently people did not know how these joints could heal
and the best they could do was remove the bad rips of cartilage
and smooth the surfaces off and hope the friction was reduced.
Some research has indicated that synovial fluid helps the
cartilage to live and even grow. It does help the joint by
acting as a lubricant.
Since going into the joint and snipping and smoothing is
invasive, expensive and risky other ways of helping have
been looked at.
One idea of helping is increasing the lubricating
power/effectiveness of the synovial joint fluid. The latest
idea is to actually stimulate the fluid to somehow deposit new
cartilage and thereby smoooth the nicks, rips and tears by
stimulating healing.
I have HEARD that experiments with high doses of vitamin C have
thickened the synovial fluid with some results in less pain and
inflammation. However I do NOT know much about these or how
effective they were /are or how much vit C was used. I use a
vitamin C supplement for some of my really old (27) yr old
horses for other reasons. I myself have not seen "dramatic"
improvement in horses with arthritis.
I also believe that the synovial fluid simply becomes less
effective/plentiful as horses age and/or that some horses simply
have better stuff to start with.
Thus, we can help the joints if we can improve this jointfluid
somehow. This is where chondroitin sulfate and the
glucosamines, etc come in. Theoretically, they contain some of
the building blocks of cartilage-- get them into the synovial
fluid and possibly it will help the quality of the joint
improve. (the action of flexing the joint bathes it in synovial
fluid which is thought to deposit/help the cartilage
"live+grow", so movement of some sort is essential)
Flex free and all those other powdered items are oral
supplements that have the chemical building blocks in them and
the idea is that by ingesting these items they will somehow
travel to the joints and help the synovial fluids.
Adequan is an IM- or intra muscular injectable and is intended
to travel through the muscles to the joints --seems like a more
direct route to me.
Since this is a healing thing it does NOT always happen
quickly. My vet recommended a set of 4 original injections one
week apart just to evaluate whether or not it would work.
YOU CANNOT EVALUATE THE RESULTS WITHOUT A REASONABLE TIME
TRIAL- my vets insisted that if I was to try it I had to do the
full four shot cycle or it would be insufficient to evaluate
the effects -- so if your horse got one dose or shot it may
have helped but it was invisible to you and subsequent doses
may have helped more such that you could have "seen" the
results.
I have been told that the injectable versions are more
effective, hence more dramatic initial results. I believe the
immediate results are because of an increase in the
effectiveness of the synovial fluid- subsequently, more
improvements result from the "healing/feeding" action of the
synovial fluid moving across the joint each time it is flexed.
So, there is a two stage impact: immediate relief due to more
"cushioning" from the fluid and long-term relief due to actual
"healing" of cartilage.
Some vets prefer to inject directly into the joint-- this is
RISKY!! the slightest error can cause a bad injury to the
capsule or cartilage. Personally, I prefer NOT to inject into
joints and I have seen great results just intra muscular. My mare is
injected in the neck -- nowhere near the stifle - where her
biggest problems are. Other horses I have used the injectable
on have also shown improvements without joint injection but
these are MY experiences and may not apply to all.
Conclusions:
On slight lamenesses the oral supplements appear to work well.
On severe lamenesses the injectables should be considered.
Improvement varies, but be sure to give a suitable amount of
time. I am undecided about using these drugs as preventatives
but perhaps they would be helpful.
I have used flexfree on a horse that fractured a sesamoid and
he has healed perfectly sound (with lots of rest also.)
Where to get:
I have found Vetline in Ft Collins to have good prices on these
items. Prices fluctuate but you may want to call them.
Vetline Equine 970-484-1900 they have a nice catalog.
Other animals..
I have been using a small dose of chondroitin sulfate on my
dog for almost a year now. She is 12 years old and had started
sleeping on the floor and limping occasionally in cold
weather. Lately she has resumed her sleeping on my bed and has
not shown any signs of lameness. I believe it has helped her.
I give her a small dose twice a day on her food and she loves
it! There are forms specifically for dogs, but I use the horse
version.( I believe its made of ground up cattle tracheas)
I have heard of humans using this stuff but I have not. There
is a form of glucosamines available at healthfood
stores, why dont we conduct a study on our lame, sore selves?
hee hee hee!
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/"\____~/ /\| / /
//'( )__, ) /__/ ___
/' /v_ '-. Donna Ott / / / / Hewlett
\ ' / \ R+D Engineer FSL / / /__/ Packard
/
E-mail: donnag@hpfcfrm.fc.hp.com
3404 E Harmony Road MS 69 Telnet: 229-4347 (970)229-4347
Fort Collins CO 80525 Location: 3U-J2
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