Category Archives: Equine Massage

Identify and Treat Equine Sacroiliac Problems

By Elaine Pascoe With Kevin K. Haussler, DVM, DC, PhD – See more at: http://practicalhorsemanmag.com/article/identify-and-treat-equine-sacroiliac-problems-11803#sthash.Omnty5wB.dpuf

Your horse gallops, jumps, collects, turns and extends his stride with power from his hindquarters. And his sacroiliac (SI) joint?the ?meeting place of his pelvis and spine?is critical at every stride. It transfers the action of his hind legs to his back, translating the push into forward motion.

Given the forces that this joint handles day in and day out, it’s not unusual for horses to develop SI pain. The trick is recognizing the problem: SI injuries are notoriously hard to pin down, with subtle and confusing signs, easily mistaken for other physical or even behavioral problems. Even a “hunter’s bump,” a raised area at the top of the croup that’s often thought to reveal SI trouble, isn’t a reliable sign.

How can you tell if your horse develops SI pain? And, more to the point, what can you do to help him if he does? For this article, we asked Kevin Haussler, DVM, DC, PhD, of the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at Colorado State University, for help in answering those questions. Who’s at Risk? Any horse can injure his SI joint in a fall or some other accident. The injury may leave the joint less stable than it was originally, so it can become a source of chronic pain. Performance horses may develop SI problems through simple wear and tear?and the more mechanical stress the joint comes under, the greater the risk, Dr. Haussler says. SI problems are fairly common. In one recent survey, these problems accounted for more than half of 124 horses presented for back problems at the University of Minnesota equine clinic. Show jumping and dressage seem to be especially hard on the joint, according to a study carried out by Sue Dyson, FRCVS, and others at the Center for Equine Studies, Animal Health Trust, Newmarket, United Kingdom. That study analyzed records of 74 horses seen for SI pain at the center. Dressage horses and show jumpers accounted for almost 60 percent of the group. Slightly more than half were warmbloods, suggesting that breed may play a role. And horses with SI pain tended to be taller and heavier than average, another sign that mechanical stress is an important factor. Under stress, Dr. Haussler says, the joint can be injured in several ways. The SI ligaments can tear, just as ligaments and tendons in a limb can give way under stress. And the joint itself, like the hock or any other joint, can become inflamed. Over time, osteoarthritis develops?cartilage wears away and bone remodels. Thoroughbred racehorses sometimes get pelvic stress fractures directly over the SI joint, and those need to be differentiated from SI joint arthritis.

What You’ll See SI problems are hard to spot. The joint has almost no range of motion and is buried under layers of muscle and fat, so you can’t really see or feel it. And signs of SI pain are often frustratingly vague. Your first hint of trouble may be a change in your horse’s performance or attitude?he’s not working at his usual level or seems unwilling to work. He lacks impulsion behind, and his quality of movement isn’t what it was. Your farrier may tell you that your horse is difficult to shoe behind. You may see other signs as well. Some may show up when your horse works on a longe line or in-hand. But ?often signs are worse when your horse is ridden or is asked to canter, because these demands call for more hind-limb ?impulsion and put more stress on the SI. Sometimes the signs are apparent only when your horse is ridden, and sometimes they are felt only from the saddle. Horses with SI problems may not look lame, even to a skilled observer, but they often feel worse to a rider.

Besides lack of impulsion and reduced quality of movement, you may notice that your horse

is reluctant to move forward.

holds his back rigid.

tends to throw his rider upward and forward.

is reluctant to work on the bit.

has trouble with lateral work, such as shoulder-in and half-pass.

is stiff and crooked at the canter.

changes his leading hind leg (swaps off behind) at the canter.

has trouble with flying lead changes.

bucks and kicks out.

refuses jumps.

Working your horse in-hand (on a firm surface), you may also see that he travels with a wide-based gait behind and has trouble with foot placement on circles. A “hunter’s bump” just indicates a prominent bony crest?the tuber sacrale underneath the muscles at the top of the croup. Prominence on one or both sides may be normal for a particular horse, Dr. Haussler says, but if your horse has pain, muscle spasms and joint stiffness in the SI or pelvic region, then the bump is likely to be significant. It may signal subluxation a partial displacement of the tuber sacrale.

Asymmetrical muscling in the hindquarters is another red flag?or, perhaps, a red herring. Unfortunately, most signs of SI pain can be produced by other conditions. In fact, SI pain often appears along with other musculoskeletal problems. In Dr. Dyson’s study, 25 percent of the horses also had lameness in a front or hind limb, and another 25 percent had arthritis or other problems somewhere in their spines. The problems are often related, but it can be hard to know what came first. Did a lower-leg lameness cause your horse to change his way of going in a way that stressed his SI? Or did SI pain cause him to alter his gaits in a way that overloaded a limb and caused the lameness? Solving the puzzle is a challenge for your veterinarian. Determining the Problem Your horse’s performance history and a clinical examination are the starting points for the diagnosis, Dr. Haussler says. Your veterinarian will watch your horse in motion and perform a hands-on exam, checking for asymmetries and for pain in response to manual pressure. Only the top parts of the dorsal (upper) SI ligaments can be felt directly, and signs of pain and swelling here suggest ligament damage. The joint itself and the ventral ligaments are too deep to check this way, but rectal palpation of the SI region may also produce a pain response. The SI joint can also be blocked with an injection of local anesthesia (in the same way that nerve or joint blocks are done in the limbs). This test can confirm that the SI region is the source of your horse’s discomfort, but it doesn’t tell ?exactly what’s going on. The joint’s deep location makes it difficult to image, but several techniques can help zero in on the nature of the problem:

A bone scan (nuclear scintigraphy) can reveal osteoarthritis. Your horse is ?injected with a radioactive substance that accumulates in areas of active bone remodeling, and a gamma camera tracks the substance as it moves through his body.

Ultrasound scans can detect damage to ligaments. Transrectal ultrasound (the technique used for equine pregnancy checks) may reveal irregular SI joint margins?a sign of arthritis?as well as damage to the ventral (lower) SI ligament.

Ultrasound or radiographs can help identify a displaced tuber sacrale.

Even with these tools, it’s sometimes hard to figure out the exact nature of an SI problem. But knowing the cause of your horse’s pain will increase the odds of ?successful treatment and make a relapse less likely.

Customize His Treatment
Treatment should be customized to the individual case, Dr. Haussler says. Medication, reduced exercise, physical therapy and alternative therapies may all play a role in the program. Here are three key components:

Reduce inflammation. This is the first step in treating SI pain. Your veterinarian may prescribe a course of oral phenylbutazone (bute) or another nonsteroidal anti-?inflammatory drug. If arthritis or ligament damage is diagnosed, local injections of corticosteroids can help reduce pain and inflammation. The injections are similar to those used in other inflamed joints, such as the hock.

Reduce exercise. Limited exercise helps by strengthening the muscles that surround the joint?but too much work will aggravate the injury. Your veterinarian can help determine how much and what type of exercise is best for your horse. The program might call for light work in-hand, on the longe line or in a round pen for several weeks. If your horse is comfortable with that, you might start light riding at the walk and then at the trot. Increase work slowly, ?watching carefully for signs that your horse is uncomfortable or ?unwilling.

Allow turnout. Stall rest isn’t recommended for most SI injuries. In most cases, turnout in a small paddock with good footing is helpful. Avoid deep mud, large rocks, poor footing and steep hills, which may aggravate SI problems.

Arthritis in the SI joint can lead to chronic, low-grade pain. In this case, careful management will help keep your horse comfortable.

Use a progressive (gradually increasing) exercise program to strengthen and supple his hindquarters. Tailor the length, frequency and intensity of the work to suit your horse, Dr. Haussler says, backing off if your horse seems unwilling or if other trouble signs return.

Use cross-training techniques?for example, alternate flatwork, hacks in the field and cavalletti work to avoid constant or repetitive stress on the joint.

Avoid activities that are especially hard on the SI region: jumping, galloping, abrupt transitions, tight turns and circles.

Turn out your horse as much as possible. Moving around at liberty will help him maintain flexibility, reducing joint stiffness.

Several alternative therapies may help keep your horse on the road to recovery:

Acupuncture may be useful for pain control in the SI region.

Therapeutic exercises can help restore impulsion and coordination in the hind limbs. Hind-limb stretching exercises that draw the leg forward (protraction) and backward (retraction) may help relax spastic muscles or contracted connective tissue and restore joint mobility.

Chiropractic or osteopathic techniques may be helpful in chronic cases to restore normal, pain-free joint mobility.

Massage may help relax muscle tightness in the croup or upper hind limbs.

The outlook for horses with SI injuries depends on the severity and duration of the problem, Dr. Haussler says. A horse with a mild injury should recover and has a good chance of returning to full work. Horses with more severe cases of osteoarthritis or ligament damage may return to a low level of exercise, but their outlook for returning to high performance isn’t so good. As a rule, a horse who responds well to treatment has a better chance of full recovery than one who does not.

The Benefits of Massage

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Massages feels amazing, especially after a grueling workout—and their benefits aren’t just skin deep. Soft tissue massage is exceptionally good for bone-weary athletes and people with inflammation-related chronic conditions like arthritis and muscular dystrophy, according to research from McMaster University. Vigorous exercise causes small tears in your muscle fibers, and your body’s natural repair process naturally leads to inflammation and soreness.

To see if massage truly aids recovery, the researchers biopsied volunteers’ legs over the course of three sessions—once while at rest, a second time after they’d vigorously exercised on a stationary bike and received a 10-minute massage on one thigh, and a third biopsy two and a half hours after the second to track the repair processes between the massaged and un-massaged legs.

Unsurprisingly, massage reduced the production of cytokines, which play a critical role in inflammation, and stimulated mitochondria—the tiny powerhouses inside your cells that convert glucose into energy for cell function and repair. So make sure to schedule regular massages; your muscles will adapt better to the demands of increased exercise.

Could Your Horse Do Better at Shows?

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If your horse has squeaky clean X-rays and MRI’s, does that mean the horse is pain free? You can ask the same question about your own body. The answer is, of course, no. If you play tennis or ski or ride or dance or even garden, you know you can hurt without being injured. The same goes for your horse. What surrounds the skeleton is of more importance than the skeleton itself. Until fairly recently, the fascia has been largely ignored by most health care professionals, and cannot be seen in standard tests such as X-rays and MRIs.

The body work that I do on horses is meant to alleviate the pain and stress of horse sport. If the body is balanced and symmetrical, then the body can move gracefully, without distortion. This restoration of the body can be done gently and thoroughly with a combination of myofascial release, stress point, and trigger point therapy,

Strains, due to injuries and accidents, get lodged in the body when a horse compensates movement during the healing process. Unless these compensations are fully released and realigned, they eventually become chronic strains that limit coordinated movement and cause pain. Horses need massage just as much, if not more, than any human athlete, since they have to carry someone on their back! The benefits of massage are the same for horse or human, with increased suppleness, better range of motion, and quicker recovery from injury. This therapy is so much more than a relaxation massage. It improves performance and longevity in whatever sport or casual use they are involved in.

My biggest thrill is to help an animal become pain free. They behave and perform differently. Their whole personality and energy can change. And the results of the massage can be long lasting.

Whole Body Treatment

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The usual approach to treating sore muscles is to use liniment for a relaxing rubdown, or use a high tech blanket, or maybe do some leg stretches. And if none of those techniques work, what is next? Trigger points, or muscle knots, are small patches of contracted muscle fibers that cause aching and stiffness. When activated through strain or injury, they cause pain either at the site itself, or refer it somewhere else in the body.

Thousands of muscle fibers contract to create movement. Sometimes muscle fibers can tear, leading to tension, swelling, and heat. What may begin as a small numbers of fibers, barely noticeable, can become a progressive problem as the micro trauma spreads to adjacent muscle fibers.

Conscientious riders will be aware of the smallest change in movement or behavior and take action before the problem becomes a major injury.

When muscle fibers are injured, the surrounding area becomes shortened and tight. This uneven stress can be transferred through the fascia and cause additional pain and restrictions in other parts of the body as trigger points or stress points. My job is to apply gentle pressure until the restriction is released, and free movement and balance are restored. Muscle tension, pain, postural imbalances, and improved circulation are all benefits of stress and trigger point therapy. As Jack Meagher always said, “That is called putting your finger on the problem!”

The Body Remembers

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The nervous system remembers the pain and trauma of an injury. With your horse, you might see this as stiffness at the beginning of a workout, or extreme caution. When a rider tells me their horse just “doesn’t want to jump anymore”, I suspect muscle pain and get to work looking for it.

Trauma accumulates in the body, starting at birth. Have you considered how much trauma there is for a foal during the birth process? The results can set up tight muscle patterns that last a lifetime, unless manually removed.

Myofascial release aims to relax contracted muscles, improve blood and lymphatic circulation, and stimulate the stretch reflex in muscles. Often I stand back after just one bodywork session and see that the body is already reorganizing itself. The body looks less chopped up into sections and more of one flowing form. During a session the body of the horse is educated in the process to move the way it is supposed to: in balance and without restrictions. If the connective tissue that covers every muscle, bone, nerve, blood vessel, and organ in the body is free of restriction, the horse will move and behave in a completely different way.

Myofascial therapy relieves soft tissue restrictions that cause pain. Some causes of chronic muscle pain are easier to diagnose than others: trauma from birth or a fall, cumulative posture misalignment , a compressed nerve from poor saddle fit, etc.

When pain is caused by Myofascial tightness the diagnosis can be difficult, as fascia restrictions do not show up on MRI scans or X-rays. Yet, those restrictions can play a significant role in creating pain and malfunction in the structure of the back and legs. Every horse (and dog and human!!) should experience pain free movement that can result from having restrictions removed.

Preventing Injury in Your Riding Horse

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What would your horse be like if all his muscles were in a state of relaxation, free from tension? Deep tissue massage, stress and trigger point therapy, and myofascial release
will help the connective tissue become more elastic, thereby allowing the muscle to return to its natural shape.

It is very important for horses to maintain a comfortable and free range of motion. If certain muscles are tight, other muscles in the body will compensate and take up the extra workload. They may be ridden like this for weeks, months or years, until the body can no longer call on extra resources because it does not have them. This ultimately leads to ruptures of soft tissues and thickening of the tendon and ligaments, which eventually can cause permanent dysfunction of the affected area.

Muscles attach to bones in pairs of opposites, and cross one joint or more. Muscles free from tension will carry out the function of keeping joints in alignment. This allows joint fluid to flow evenly within the joint, and this reduces unnatural wear and tear of joints.

Each muscle is attached to bone by tendons. Muscles are designed to take 90% of workload and tendons the other 10% The muscle is where the elasticity is. If the muscle is not functioning properly then the tendons will take more load and can eventually tear.

Equine massage therapy is a very powerful tool in injury prevention for horses.

How the Body Regulates Muscle Tension

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Tendons connect muscles to bone. There are groups of cells within a tendon, where the fibers of the muscle meet the tendon, called Golgi tendon bodies. Made up of strands of collagen, the Golgi organ also contains nerve tissue. The major function of this organ is to sense muscle tension when a muscle is contracted, sending signals to the brain about how much force is being exerted.

Golgi tendon organs and muscle spindle cells work together to prevent injury to muscles. The more the muscle tries to stretch and the faster it tries to stretch, the more the Golgi tendon organs cause it to contract.

These nerve cells and fibers can be influenced by massage. Golgi tendon organs react to sustained pressure such as trigger point therapy and stress point therapy, by telling the muscle to relax.

The Importance of a Gentle Warm Up

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Probably the biggest problem I observe is riders demanding a “frame” from their horse within moments of mounting. Using hands to force the head and neck into a fixed shape causes damage that is difficult to reverse. Without a good period of time that allows the horse to stretch, warm up muscles, and find their balance under the rider, muscles and fascia tend to get stuck into adhesions.

Superficial fascia is the connective tissue that is found beneath the skin. This tissue links and covers blood vessels, nerves, muscles, and bones. The fascia and muscle combine to form the mysofascial system. Adhesions limit muscle movement which interferes with performance. Adhesions can also cause severe pain, reduced flexibility, and tender trigger points.

To release adhesions, I use a technique called ‘myofascial release.’ This technique involves applying gentle but sustained pressure on the soft tissue. During this technique, it is also important to target the fascia. This helps to lengthen and soften the fascia and break up the adhesions and any scar tissue that is present between the bones, muscles, and skin. Scientific evidence shows that myofascial release offers relief from different types of joint and muscle pains. Flexibility and movement is then restored.

More Benefits of Equine Massage

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My job description: using my hands to free soft tissue to encourage length, motion, and geometrical balance in the muscles, tendons, and ligaments. I have to be extremely observant, since communication with animals is non-verbal, to figure out how they can be better aligned and balanced.

After a session, most animals are both relaxed and energized. Since I see a bodywork session as a collaboration between me and the animal (not me imposing something upon them) they are always happy to see me again.

One of the reasons it is so important that muscles and fascia be relaxed and elastic is that if muscles are tense, when the hoofs hit the ground, more concussion will be taken by the joints. This is a set-up for injury and early degeneration of the joints. Healthy muscles make sure that the impact when the hoof hits the ground is distributed throughout the body. Supple muscles are able to absorb the force of the feet hitting the ground much better than tight muscles.

Become Involved in Your Own Health Care!

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Pain is the primary reason people seek medical treatment in the United States. The majority of this pain occurs in the musculoskeletal system. It would seem essential that medical professionals have in depth knowledge of this subject. If not, your doctor might fall back on old standards of care for chronic muscle and joint pain, such as anti inflammatory meds, possible antidepressants, and sleep medications. None of those “cures” get to the underlying cause of pain, and all have toxic side effects. Did you know that anti-inflammatory drugs inhibit the healing and tissue regeneration process? Nonsteroidal ani-inflammatory drugs, the number one prescribed drug for chronic pain, can cause tremendous damage to tissues. Why not try myofascial release, or trigger point therapy?

In 1998, a study was completed to assess the competency of recent medical school graduates in musculoskeletal medicine. 82% of the recent graduates failed the exam. The study went on to report that the average time spent in medical education in orthopedics was 2 weeks. One third of all medical school graduates had no orthopedic education. Because the results of the study were so shocking, it was repeated in 2002. A passing score was set at 70%. 78% of recent medical graduates failed to demonstrate basic competency in musculoskeletal medicine.

Needless to say, it may be very difficult to find help for your lower back pain, muscle pain, or joint pain. I am not a doctor, but I have found many ways in my studies and experiments (on myself, friends, and animals) to relieve pain using nutrition, supplements, low level laser therapy, myofascial release, and sports massage. Not only can pain be eliminated, but wellness and disease prevention can all be achieved with safe lifestyle changes.