29/03/2025
Meet Merlin ❤️ the little horse with the BIG personality!! Merlin suffered a bout of acute laminitis last year in August. He was so lame he could barely stand, he was sweaty and painful and there were times we thought we would lose him 😔
Partly triggered by the growing trend for misinformation on social media about shoeing/rehabilitation of laminitic cases and partly because he is the cutest ever guy, we thought we would share his journey.
The first X-rays in June were taken for foot balance prior to his laminitis. P3 (the pedal bone) is parallel to the dorsal hoof wall with adequate sole depth.
The second X-rays were taken in August three days after he came down with laminitis. The damaged laminae have separated from the hoof capsule and the pedal bone has rotated away from the dorsal wall causing severe pain. You can see that the angle of the pedal bone has changed, rotating down and reducing the depth of sole under the tip of the bone.
The third X-rays are from December showing the corrected angle and increased sole depth in his remedial shoes.
Merlin’s recovery involved a multi-modal approach which is key in laminitis. We have to tackle to main areas: managing pain, and addressing the underlying cause - namely insulin dysregulation.
1) Managing pain. This involves anti inflammatories and other pain relief (in Merlin’s case a combination of Bute and paracetamol). But another key element is to relieve the pain from pedal bone rotation. This was achieved by our farrier colleagues using casting tape and soft squishy impression material which supported Merlin’s feet instantly making him feel comfortable
2) Metabolic causes. Merlin was started on ertugliflozin, a drug similar to ones used in human diabetes to help lower his insulin in the acute stages. His diet was changed to keep him off the grass and he was turned out on a home made track system, to keep him moving and increase his metabolic rate, and fed appropriate carbohydrates to keep his insulin levels lower.
Check out the comments for a video of Merlin living his best life 🤩
Key takeaways - despite social media posts to the contrary, farriery does not cause pedal bone rotation - laminitis dose! And remedial shoes are also not to ‘fix’ laminitis, but they are incredibly important to keep horses comfortable while we address the underlying metabolic causes.
Laminitis is a tricky beast to tackle and vets, farriers and owners need to all work together to overcome it 🙂 for more information about laminitis and track systems give the practice a call.
Thank you so much to Merlin’s owner for not only working so hard to save him but also allowing us to share his journey. And huge thanks to David Dawson for saving this boys life.
