Navicular Bone Fracture

[irishsaints]

Hello all,

So I recently learned that a horse at my barn fractured his navicular bone. The lady who owns him is really nice, and it's a terrible thing to have happen to him. He had been lame for the past two weeks, and everyone assumed it was an abcess or something.

What I was wondering is this: Has anyone ever experienced this/ gone through it? And

Comments

[harnessphoto]

actually, yes, i have had experience with this. until just now, we had the only horse i had heard of who actually BROKE his navicular, as opposed to getting navicular disease. we have a four year old babysitter gelding named Lance. he's a BIG horse and has a very piston-like movement about his trot. the sheer force of training broke his navicular. they put him in these ridiculous "high heeled" shoes for a long time to take the pressure off. it eventually healed well and he's now barefoot and totally pasture sound. he lives on a HUGE hill and hasn't taken a lame step since we brought him home... and he plays HARD with the kids. they were originally going to put him back in training, but didn't want to risk it. i've been told he could easily do light riding.

it's not a pretty injury, but there's lots of hope!

[harnessphoto]

and a displaced fracture is one in which the bone pieces shift out of alignment.

[irishsaints]

so is a fractured navicular the same as navicular disease?

thanks for the info, i'm glad to know there's hope for this horse yet...:) He's a lovely horse, and I don't want to see him put down, which has been discussed.

[harnessphoto]

navicular disease and a fractured navicular are NOT the same thing. a fractured navicular is just that... a broken bone. navicular disease is (if i'm not mistaken) corruption of the navicular tissue. it's a degenerative disease that usually occurs in older horses. if he's not in pain, i don't see a reason to put him down, but that decision is obviously up to his owners. it would be a long recovery, and there is always a risk of complication. but it sounds like they could save him if things went smoothly.

[foalstory]

there's a navicular BONE? there's a navicular bursta of soft tissue and other stuff. Do you mean a fractured coffin bone?

[twisted_end]

K, I've never commented here but I've been keeping up with the community a lot lately. I realize I have no credibility here, but I feel like I can competently answer this one, so here goes:

The navicular bone sits behind the coffin joint between P2 and P3 (coffin bone) and redirects the pull of the deep digital flexor tendon, which is why there's a bursa (the 'navicular bursa', filled w/ synovial fluid) there, so the tendon doesn't rub directly on bone. It's also known as the distal sesamoid bone. (or, incorrectly, the 'sesamoid' bone, even though it's important to differentiate b/c there's a pair of proximal sesamoids that provide the shape of the fetlock and redirect the pull of other tendons). Does that make sense? I can try to post some pictures or diagrams if not. Just wanted to try to clear things up! The equine foot is pretty complex with all its bursas and ligaments without having someone (me) try to explain it in just plain words. =) Hope it helped, anyway.

[irishsaints]

um, no, it definitely was the navicular bone. i think it does exsist, its just real, real little, from what i understand. unless my book is totally and completely wrong.

[__eloquence__]

there is definitely a navicular BONE. When people talk about navicular changes they are talking about degeneration of the bone. There can't be changes in a bursa. Navicular bursitis is one form of navicular disease but most often it has to do with degeneration of the bone. In this case the OP is talking about an actual fracture of the bone which I have never heard of so this is very interesting.