First Opinion
First opinion consultations are carried out at our hospital by prior appointment.
The full range of diagnostic services are available use including the trot up area and all weather surface school for lameness investigations.
Referrals
We are happy to accept a wide range of surgical and medical referrals at our Oakham Hospital. Cases may be referred directly or via your local vet for a specific procedure, or for investigation of the problem. Please contact our equine reception team, or our vets by telephone or e-mail for advice on specific cases.
Range of cases:
Booking in
•This can be done by the referring vet or client, via telephone to our equine reception team, on 01572722647.
What to expect
• Cases for investigation will be booked for a consultation with one of our vets, generally in the afternoon. Preliminary investigations and treatments are generally carried out in the presence of the owner/trainer/rider to enable choices to be made about treatment options and costs to be explained. It is our policy to organise the hospital schedule such that potential surgery cases can have theatre time ‘ear marked' for the following day. This avoids clients having to make any extra journeys and ensures that the treatment proceed as quickly and effectively as possible.
• Surgical cases will be admitted the day before the procedure, wherever possible they should be ‘let down' and have their shoes removed.
Visiting
• We do allow clients to visit their horses when in the hospital, we ask that clients report to reception on arrival, visiting is restricted to office hours in the week and at specific times at the weekend.
Reporting
• Regular telephone reports on the progress of inpatients are given to clients, at a frequency dependant on the specific case.
• All inpatients progress reports are updated on our computer system daily, so that our reception team can advice clients that telephone in.
• For surgical cases we endeavour to contact all clients by telephone as soon as their horse has recovered from anaesthesia to advice on the progress of their condition.
How to pay
Our policy on referral cases is to bill the client direct; however for new clients we request credit card details as security for payment. We encourage payment at the time of treatment or collection of the horse. For specific payment terms contact our reception team.
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Black thorn embedded in the corneal of a horse's eye. |  |
Foreign material removed from fetlock. |
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Defect left eye after the thorn removal. A catheter was placed below the lower lid to allow continous medication of the eye. |  |
Appearance of fetlock after initial treatment. surgery was not required in this case as the stake had not penetrated the fetlock capsule. |
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Appearance of the eye 4 months later. The remaining scar was nonpainful and did not affect vision. |  |
Severe laceration to the lower eyelid before surgery. |
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Infected wound over the front of the carpus being treated with a surgical joint flush. |  |
Appearance of eyelid after surgery. |
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Injury sustained to fetlock whilst out jumping. The foreign material was left in place before referral to allow accurate assessment of the wound using radiography and ultrasonography. |
Dentistry
Regular quality dental work is important for maintaining your horse's health and performance and can prevent bigger problems in the future.
There are many advantages in having your horses teeth attended to by a qualified veterinary surgeon. Most horses only require a 20 minute treatment to remove share enamel points on an annual basis.
Our prices are very competitive to those of a fully trained equine dental technician. Please phone the hospital for our current price plan.
If you decide not to use a vet to attend to your horse's teeth, we would strongly advise that you choose a registered equine dental technician (EDT). Refer to www.beva.org.uk for a list of approved EDT's.
Any damage to your horse's mouth caused by an unregistered ‘dentist' is unlikely to be covered by your insurance.
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Excessive wear due to vice of wall grinding. The horse continuously rubs its teeth along the wall. |
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Wolf tooth and rostral hook present on 1st upper molar. |
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Incisor wear due to crib biting. |  |
Parrot mouth congenital abnormality. |
Extracorporeal Shock Wave Therapy
Extracorporeal shock wave therapy (ESWT) is a relatively new treatment modality for musculoskeletal injuries in equines. It was developed from lithotripsy machines used in the human field. These machines generated pulsed waves to shatter and break down large urinary calculi allowing them to be passed without the need for surgery. Today, shock wave therapy has been developed for treating a number of soft tissue and bone injuries in humans and horses.
The machine used in the hospital generates a high intensity pressure wave which travels through fluid and tissue to be focused at the site of injury. Our machine is also portable and can be taken out for treatments at your premises.
ESWT has been shown to stimulate and accelerate the healing process. This is achieved by:
- an immediate analgesic effect (pain killing)
- a reduction in inflammation
- neovascularisation in soft tissues
- oestogenesis in bone
Injuries treated
It is for injuries at the soft tissue-bone interface, i.e the attachement of ligaments to bone, that we have found ESWT to be most therapeutically effective. These areas are often difficult to medicate and unsuitable for surgery. Therefore the non-invasive and focused attributes of ESWT have proved extremely valuable.
Examples of such injuries are as followed:
Proximal suspensory desmitis
Collateral ligament injuries
Navicular Disease
Sacro-iliac injuries
What is involved?
The treatment takes minutes. The horse is usually sedated, the skin may be clipped and a coupling gel is rubbed into the skin. This preparation provides good contact for the probe head, which is pressed against the horse to deliver the pulsed waves. The type and location of the injury determines the energy required, the depth of focus and the number of pulses the tissue requires.
Most treatment protocols to promote healing of acute injuries involve 1000-2500 impulses delivered at the target area once every 2-3 three weeks for 3 treatments. The horses are usually restricted to stable rest and controlled exercise between treatments. The horses are then re-evaluated and post treatment exercise levels guided by the nature of the original injury and the improvement seen with treatment.
The shock wave machine is certainly not a cure-all box. Much is needed in the way of further clinical trials with accurate follow up data, to validate the success and suitability of ESWT for different clinical conditions. The machine does have a role in chronic pain management, it does appear to speed recovery of some injuries and may stimulate repair in some chronic injuries that have not improved with conventional management.
At Oakham we have been particularly impressed with the ESWT's ability to provide pain relief for those horses with chronic conditions such as kissings spines, mild proximal suspensory desmitis and neck osteoarthritis. We treat a number of international competition horses with these conditions, the results and riders strongly support the pain killing and anti inflammatory effects. A shockwave treatment of a chronic injury in the week proceeding and event or competition really seems to help the horse's ability to perform.