As we were talking about pain symptoms a little while ago (eyelashes), Some of you may remember me saying forever ago that Jess is quite stoic but there is sometimes something in her face that lets me know she's not 100%. I have since found this https://www.researchgate.net/figure...or-each-of-the-6-facial-action_fig2_260950013 and it helped me begin to label what I see with her more and be more accurate in picking up on things.
On Monday when I put the boys in with her I let them all on a section of the track which has, by comparison, a lot of grass. Its about 2.5m wide and 30m long, at least half of it is nettles. They had 2 hours on there in the morning, then I shut it off, very stupidly I only shut 1 end off though, I went off for about 3 hours in the afternoon and by the time I got back there she had figured it out and gone around and in the other end. I cringed and kicked myself but what's done is done.
Tuesday she was sound, no heat, no pulses etc. Last night I noticed her jaw was showing tension, she was still sound (no nodding, normal stride length and flight pattern etc.), I could find her digital pulse (normally she is quite hard to find digital pulses on) in her left fore though it wasn't bounding and was just at the higher end of normal. I popped hoof testers on, a subtle but positive reaction at the toe on that foot TBH if it wasn't for the jaw tension, I wouldn't have given it a 2nd thought.
I didn't think to take any pictures last night, but went back through millions of pics from the last 3 years and have found a few where I can see the tension.
This one shows it up more because of the shadowing, normally the big jaw muscle is soft and smooth
This pic was taken a couple of years ago when I had her penned up because her lameness got worse
The green lines are 1st stage, when its really bad I can also see it where the blue lines are
The same pic without my scribbles, you can see how subtle it is
Hopefully caught so early and the fact that the grass was removed 2 days before any symptoms showed means she won't spiral into a full episode, and that the sensitivity found reduces very quickly.
On Monday when I put the boys in with her I let them all on a section of the track which has, by comparison, a lot of grass. Its about 2.5m wide and 30m long, at least half of it is nettles. They had 2 hours on there in the morning, then I shut it off, very stupidly I only shut 1 end off though, I went off for about 3 hours in the afternoon and by the time I got back there she had figured it out and gone around and in the other end. I cringed and kicked myself but what's done is done.
Tuesday she was sound, no heat, no pulses etc. Last night I noticed her jaw was showing tension, she was still sound (no nodding, normal stride length and flight pattern etc.), I could find her digital pulse (normally she is quite hard to find digital pulses on) in her left fore though it wasn't bounding and was just at the higher end of normal. I popped hoof testers on, a subtle but positive reaction at the toe on that foot TBH if it wasn't for the jaw tension, I wouldn't have given it a 2nd thought.
I didn't think to take any pictures last night, but went back through millions of pics from the last 3 years and have found a few where I can see the tension.
This one shows it up more because of the shadowing, normally the big jaw muscle is soft and smooth
This pic was taken a couple of years ago when I had her penned up because her lameness got worse
The green lines are 1st stage, when its really bad I can also see it where the blue lines are
The same pic without my scribbles, you can see how subtle it is
Hopefully caught so early and the fact that the grass was removed 2 days before any symptoms showed means she won't spiral into a full episode, and that the sensitivity found reduces very quickly.