Cytek shoeing

[Ju-di]

Hi
i have a horse with collapsed heels, has been shod with pads last year and we had a good few months of competition, but had to remove pads because they crushed heels even more. She is shod with natural balance shoes on front and not done much through winter, now she is back in work she has gone lame again and x rays show she is worse than before the remedial shoeing last year. Vet says we can try and keep her as sound as possible for as long as possible with pads again and remove them for a few months of the year, as her heels are being crushed with or without pads. Eventually she will get navicular and probably tendon problems. Currently looking at retiring her and I know there will come a time when I will have to euthanase her, how far away that will be i dont know.
Anyway, I have read about Cytek shoeing. Generally i tend to be sceptical about things like this, but being desperate have to be open minded.
Does anyone have any experience of this system.
Your comments would be appreciated.

[MelanieD]

Cytek is a bad copy of natural balance so really doubt it'd work where NB hasn't. If its that bad that she's not sound even in remedial shoes then barefoot may be an option. There's perfect hoof wear or solemate pads inside boots to keep her comfortable and some problems, like underrun heels, are much easier to manage and improve without shoes just because of the different pressures on the foot. I'm guessing it'll probably seem like there's no way she'd cope without shoes if she's lame in shoes but I've seen horses more comfortable after taking them off or in boots and pads compared to in shoes when the feet are in a bad state.

[Roofio]

My boy had cytec a few years ago and it made his already bad feet even worse. He went barefoot about 6 months ago and has never looked back :) if you look back at some of my old posts there's plenty of pics to nose at :p