Hot Spots Thermal Imaging

I was called out to see a horse that was displaying some concerning problems in regards to his body condition, and ability to work, and being a very young horse there should have been no good reason why (barring injury) he seemed so incapable of doing the work asked, he was also steadily deteriorating.

This is what I saw

He had no qualms in showing exactly how he felt, he was grouchy in a way no young horses should be, extremely girthy, and just generally not happy. There were so many area's on him totally inflamed, including his feet, that pinpointing the cause was still a major hurdle. All credit to his owner who didnt stop looking until she found what it was.

Here is him about 3 months later

Well isnt just the most amazing transformation? You like I would probably never have guessed the cause - grass!

The owner now has the horse on a track system and the results speak for themselves, no other changes like saddles etc were made, all credit to the owner of this horse, she is one of the most intuitive horse people I have ever met, and has a very good idea whats going on with her horse. The first lot of pictures with the circles on the rump, where  they are white, it is my understanding (from various professionals) that this is an area of the lymphatic system, so it would appear the grass was actually poisoning him. I believe this condition is something to do with excess potassium, but best to clarify with Jenny Patterson of Horsemanship NZ.

I personally was very surprised by the results, we all know horses can be very silly on too much grass (like my own horses currently!) but I wasn't really aware of the adverse physical issues. This horse the last time I saw him, is a happy go lucky young horse like he should be, now excelling in his work and with a very bright future ahead. This horse is one of the severe examples of this, most horses do not physically show like he did, but its food for thought, if your having big issues, with no apparent cause, I would recommend giving the track system a go, there are a few other details to be aware of, so give Jenny a call.

Golly, hasnt it just been the wettest spring ever!?

Finding this is affecting horses in all sorts of ways, but one of the commenest things I am seeing at the moment is dreaded thrush. Yuk

Thrush is an interesting one, as often the horses are just presenting with signs of reduced performance, down to mild lameness, but its not often obvious until I look at the feet in infrared what the issue is

These are some pretty typical average pictures of under a horses hoof and its front lower legs under normal conditions.

These pictures are typical of a horse with Thrush, pretty easily treated.

The worrying thing is that it seems to be pretty undetectable, when your not even convinced there is something wrong. Obviously it takes a bit to get to the stage where its affecting the limbs, but I have seen this a reasonable amount. Be extra vigilint about your horses feet, whenever I see a horse that I suspect thrush, the frogs always look pretty dodgy, if your horses frogs look dodgy, have a good feel around for heat and get onto some thrush killing products asap, easily treatable.

Hopefully soon Spring will stop raining on us, and our horses wont be standing in knee deep mud all the time, I am sure soon enough we will be complaing about the heat and lack of rain and I am sure then I will have another update of potential booby traps for our horses. Dontcha just love it?!

Well of course there would be an emphatic 'NO' from me, and probably not for the reasons you would expect.

I suspect their are a fair amount of New Zealand horse owners who agree wholeheartedly with me also, having experienced the benefits for themselves and their horses.

However I understand that the general horse public are sick to death of having the 'latest and greatest' shoved down their throats, with claims it will solve all their problems, and not delivering anything but an empty bank account...   It seems that these days there is a lotion and potion for everything, all at a cost of course, and many of these things require unrelenting faith that they just will work. Of course I have an unfair advantage, I can check and see if they work - double edged though, as I cant tell you the results!

Anyway the question of allergies has come up, and in a roundabout way I have actually seen a few horses with sinus issues, I have been given permission to post these pictures of a horse with a sinus infection.

And next is one of mine tonight - that doesnt have an infection.

(and all the rest lined up in the background, wondering what on earth I was doing!)

There is nothing that Thermal Imaging doesnt show, and I am not aware of any other diagnostic that can show issues on bone/ligament/muscle/hoof/tendon/and internal organs if inflamed all in the one non invasive extremely short time frame. I see horses all the time that have been Xray'd all over, or scanned or worse, these other procedures all focus on one area and miss the rest, and realistically its like throwing a dart in a haystack knowing where to begin.

There are times where I advise that  wont be much help, allergies is probably a good example, yes I can show an inflamed sinus or glands, but that doesnt help find what the allergen is! Also laminitis is another one, yes it shows clearly, but if its been diagnosed, all you will get is pictures of what you knew, however I often get asked to confirm the diagnosis. So in my mind there is nothing gimmiky about this at all, But what do you think?

Oh boy how exciting, we made it into print

The Horse and Pony magazine article, was fabulous, and by far exceeded what I was expecting, hugest thanks to both Annie Studholm and Rowan Dixon for all their help with this.

The article itself is extremely informative, and has loads of fantastic pictures with examples of both good and bad areas commonly found on horses.

So far I have found this has helped a lot of people really understand what it is I do, and how I can help, and what benefit it can be to just about every horse. A lot of people are suddenly seeing how it can help them understand their horses just that little bit more. Isnt that what all of us want?

I have a very busy couple of months coming up, again getting to both ends of the North Island, and am planning another trip to Nelson and one further down the South Island looking like a probability also, so if your needing me, give me a shout - I probably wont be far away in the near future!

or what is it, some of the most common phrases in the horse peoples vocabulary.

I am of course no exception. One thing I have learnt over the last 6 months is that no mans an island, and every horse therapy has its merits in its own right. Imagine me having a horse thats clearly got an issue, but no inflammation showing up, its recently happened. Not to mention the horses I have looked at of various other therapists, as they cant locate it!

The truth is I am much more likely to try Bowen or Cranio-Sacral therapy (among others) now then I ever was. Horses are complicated beings, and the list of potential 'wrongs' to happen is mind blowingly huge. I have seen things I never even knew happened to horses, and multiple times. And the catch phrase is always the same 'I have had EVERYONE look at this horse and no one knows what it is' unfortunately it seems that chances are we all will have one of these situations sooner or later.

The only advice I can really offer to people currently in this situation, is carefully plan how your going to attack the problem. First locate it, make sure it's where you thought it was, make sure there isn't a secondary area causing it. How? I can give you the name of a very good Thermographer (haha). Once we have located the area, or even in some cases not located the area, it gives us a good idea of where to go from there. If we cannot locate the area, I always think thats a pretty good sign as its likely to be deep muscle, rather then joint or bone, and we can rule out limbs etc.

Once we have decided where it is, we can start with treatments, I can recommend some good people to help, the reality is maybe you will have to try multiple people, multiple types of treatment, anything you can, the more people that look at it, the more likely your going to find someone that can help it. This said its important to use people that have a good reputation amongst horse people, research them and get feedback, check qualifications if relevant.

Have a good go at resolving it, dont give up hope, there is a lot you can do yourself, I have a whole host of tips and tricks, recommendations and people to try. I pick this up as I talk to people, combined in knowledge we are all much more likely to succeed. Talk to people, get advice and weigh up the pro's and con's. here are an awful lot of products on the market designed to help in different ways, research them and see if anything looks worth trying. I am embarrassed to admit I was one of these people that thought a lot of the newer available therapies were 'hocus pocus' and although I never expressed any sort of negative opinion on them, it was simply because I didnt have an opinion. Now some of the best results I have seen is some of the therapies I had scoffed at for some years. I think its easy to forget New Zealand is a long long way behind a lot of other countries in what's available, it's easy to think that back in the old days, a horse dentist would have been laughed out of town. Things have changed, and by golly it is for the better of our horses.

My recent experience in the world of "what is it" was a nightmare, we all knew where, but no one knew what and so the signs didn't looks good. This affected the horse's rideabilty in a huge way, he was set for a lead rein life. I tried everything I could and did a lot of massage and stretches, I also used a well known product Back on Track. I bought a cover on special at the Taupo 3 Day Event and put it on the horse. The results speak for them selves.

This is the back of the horse in question, we knew from visual exammination that the issue was in the near side hind leg/hip.

After one day in the back on track cover the inflamed muscle reveals itself. The next day both sides were even again. I have since had an awful lot of progress with this horse, he is again on track to be an eventer, and whilst I don't feel that any one thing made the difference, the suppliments, the hours of muscle work, the professionals, or the cover, its for sure been a combination of them all.

One of the most common things I see with the Thermal Camera, is an unbalanced hoof. This can be caused by a variety of reasons, so generally we refer you back to your Farrier to find a cause; however it has a pretty direct affect on the joints in the leg affected.

Most riders that I know want to prolong their horses working life by as long as possible, and will often include expensive joint suppliments into their daily routine wether required or not, just to be proactive for the day its needed. An unbalanced hoof put so muh stress on the joints, no joint suppliment can help, so its a very real issue and one people need to get sorted out.

This is an example of a hoof imbalance in the off front hoof, you can see how the fetlock and knee are affected by this, in inflammation. Once this has been rebalanced, the inflammation will dissappear in minutes. Its caused by (in this example) the inside of that hoof hitting the ground first, therefore the concussion is travelling up the inside of the leg, and not the whole leg evenly, greatly reducing the horses concussion absorbing ability.

This is an example of a heel to toe imbalance, and this is affecting the check ligament under the knee. This one always worries me as once this is done, your looking at a long turn out period to recover. It again highlights how important it is to have a good farrier, and keep on top of your horses Farrier needs.

Here is a pair of very unbalanced feet (see the red extending up the legs, both inside and outside of the legs, exactly the same side as the hooves are unbalanced)

And this is the same hooves, about 10 minutes later after the trimmer balanced to the pictures, amazing stuff!

Well its been a couple of busy weeks, spent a week in the Wellington and Manawatu area, looking at a mixture of sport horses/race horses, not well horses and maintenance checks.

Then home for a few days, and off to the Waikato for some racehorses, Auckland for some follow ups and back to the Waikato again. Phew, my poor wee car!

Saw some the usuual mixture of things that the owners had no real idea were there, and already had some very positive feedback on things that were found. It highlights again, how brilliant this tool is for maintenance. We cant always know whats going on with our horses, and often mistake their sudden lack of enthusiasim for disobedience or a numer of other things, and often there is a physical reason. The more I see the more clear it is that our horses just give and give and give, and by the time they say ENOUGH, they really have reason too. I listen to my horses a lot more now.

This is an interesting picture of a horse with a virus, best swollen glands I have seen!

Also this week I did a folow up on a horse I have seen 3 times now, and he went from being a bit of a sore wee camper, and with the help of the camera to identify the areas and a qualified therpist to work on the areas, he is looking pretty good now, and has progressed from a couple months of just walking work, to back into work.

Yes, thats a Thermal Deer.

I went to a customers place a week or so back, nd they had seriously the coolest pet, a deer! She was a super friendly Deer and you could touch her and pat her, and she followed you around like a Dog! I just had to get a picture.

I am mid way organising my Wellington/Palmy and surrounding area's trip, that looks to be going to include Wanganui and Masterton. Looks like I will be very busy for the rest of the month.

I have my new email finally up and running, its kylee@hotspotsimaging.co.nz

I have found gmail to be both good and bad to run from, the good aspect is it being web based I can read them from anyones PC, but the bad is it stacks them vertically and can be a nightmare to actually find emails.

Well its been a bit of a big week, had a few 'non thermal' things to take care of also.

Have confirmed a lot of trips for April, so if your in the Waikato, Auckland, Wellington, Palmy or Napier area's register for the last of the Horse of the Year Special before it expires on the 14th April. I am also planning a trip to Christchurch in the very near future.

Some may have noticed my advert in the Horse Trader this month, very exciting stuff! That is also the first thing to really advertise the new website also.

I had a diagnosis come through on a horse I looked at awhile back, you might find it interesting

This horse had broken its shoulder. Prognosis is better than expected, they are waiting for calcification and expect a reasonable recovery, really its pretty amazing what they can heal from.

Well its a week after Horse of the Year and I have been busy setting up my next few trips.

Spent a bit of time at home, catching up with mundane things like shopping and washing, erk.

We have drawn the lucky winners of the Competition we held at HOY and published them on the main page.

I have a busy few weeks coming up, travelling all over the North Island, am hoping to get a bit of riding into my own horses, but this is looking unlikely, I will keep a positive outlook though! Keeps the interest alive if nothing else!

Saw an interesting example of a horse needing its teeth done the other day, I had been told that the camera is an ideal tool for picking up teeth needing done, but I hadnt seen any real examples of this, until now!

I will try and find the picture and upload it in the next blog update, I am sure you will find it as interesting as I do.

I am planning on running some case studies over winter, testing various products and going through a rather tedious exercise saddle fitting all my horses. So stay posted, exciting times ahead!