NAVICULAR

Definition
Navicular disease is a soundness issue in horses, more accutely called "navicular syndrome" as opposed to a disease.  Navicular complications are typically described as inflammation or degeneration of the navicular bone and its surrounding tissues on the front feet.  It often leads to significant and even debilitating lameness.

Causes
There can be several contributing factors in the development of navicular disease.  Most research suggests that navicular disease is most commonly effected by the following factors:  Activity, Conformation, diet and possibly even genetics.

Navicular Disease Indicators
Due to strain and inflammation of the ligaments supporting the navicular bone, reduced blood flow and increased pressure occurs within the hoof.  Heel pain is very common in horses with navicular disease and lameness may begin as mild or intermittent and progress to more severe over time.

Horses effected by navicular disease tend to land toe first in an atempt to place more weight on the toes, due to heel pain.  They may display a tendency to stumble and/or appear to lose coordination.  The lameness can effect both feet or may switch from one leg to another from overcompensating and may not be apparent consistently.

Lameness can be more evident when the horse is worked on a hard surface or in a circle.  After several months of pain from naicualar disease, the feet may begin to change shape, especially in the foot that has been experiencing the most pain, which tends to become more upright and narrow.

Treatment Options
Traditional treatment options have been limited for addressing navicular disease and are based on primitive, temporary methods.  Traditional treatments result in little to no structural progress in either halting or reversing the deteriorative effects themselves, but rather focus toward increasing the horses comfort and ability to cope with navicular for the short term (meanwhile, the condition progresses on the physiological level).

TLC's Equi-Bone
If your horse has a bone complication feed Equi-Bone to increase the supply of bone building nutrients, support metabolic and nervous system function, while increasing blood circulation to assure that the nutrients are being distributed to all areas of the body.  While rehabilitating from an injury feed at the loading rate for at least 5 months and cut back to the maintenence protocol thereafter to support healthy bone conditions moving forward.

Life After The "Loading Phase"
After you have achieved success on the loading phase of the Equi-Bone program it is important to continue producing the same effect moving forward.  Since you are dealing with a horse that is improperly remodeling bone on their own, it is important to supplement the ability to improve bone remodeling on an ongoing basis so to reduce the likelihood of redevelopment of degenerative bone issues in the future.  To do this give Equi-Bone at the rate of 1 scoop, 2 times daily as a maintenance protocol for the best results in keeping a healthy, sound horse.