not abcess-navicular!

It's been raining for weeks, so I had no doubt my little horse was developing an abcess. But I couldn't see anything, and the lameness got worse, so after a week I had a vet look at it-- appears to be navicular disease! I'm devastated. She's actually sore in both feet, but because one is much worse, it's very hard to tell. We don't know what brought it on. She has a very light riding schedule.

I'm now looking to find a farrier who can either trim or shoe her (for awhile anyway) to get past the lameness. X-rays when the vet gets back from his holiday.

Just a reminder when trying to diagnos our horses--- we can be very, very wrong.

Yes, we can be very wrong in diagnosis, even vets. You cannot diagnose 'navicular disease' without xrays, as it is defined by bone loss/changes in the navicular region. 'Navicular syndrome' however is basically the lable for unexplained caudal hoof pain/sensitivity & as such is ambiguous. Until recently they've been rather mysterious & misunderstood problems.

http://www.grayson-jockeyclub.org/ne...3000186_sm.pdf
Healthy Hoof - Solutions for Barefoot Performance
Pete Ramey hoof care laminitis founder horse navicular disease thrush equine foot development farrierNavicularSyndrome.htm
http://www.ivis.org/proceedings/aaep/1999/195.pdf
Functional anatomy of the cartilage of the dist... [Am J Vet Res. 1998] - PubMed - NCBI

Yeah the vet told me my mare either had navicular or ring bone and she has *drum roll* a bit of arthritis!
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UPDATE! Thanks to those of you who suggested talking to the farrier. I did, and my farrier offered to come out--she's the one who helped previously with my foundered pony, very much into as much natural healing as possible-- and after digging around, she found a substantial separation of the hoof wall! And a swelling at the coronet that might possibly abscess developing to come out. So it might not be navicular syndrome after all!

She did a radical trimming. I'm now treating the whole thing conservatively: diet (in case of laminitis, which I personally believe might be involved); the trimming; bute; and planning to get x-rays when things settle out.

I'm going to take a closer look at the links--thanks loosie!

If it is navicular syndrome, we had a gelding that was navicular (halter bred qh) and he managed very well... epsome salts and walking if he came up lame, plus we gave him bute (powdered) with his feed once a day... we tried to pamper him all we could with no riding but I agree its a tough situation