Our specialist veterinarians all have advanced training in diagnosis and treatment of musculoskeletal injuries and disease. We can help formulate a plan for returning your horse to its intended use and highest possible level of performance. Our veterinarians’ thorough approach is informed by long experience in conjunction with the solid research, and utilizes current techniques to maximize performance.

As part of the complete exam, the veterinarians at Montana Equine will take a detailed medical and athletic history of your horse and will perform a thorough visual appraisal of the horse at rest. We will examine your horse for conformational abnormalities, palpate all pertinent musculoskeletal structures for pain, heat or swelling, and evaluate the gait under varying conditions, including joint flexion tests. This evaluation process help steer us towards the best diagnostic tests. These tests may include nerve blocks (to regionalize the source of lameness) and/or imaging (such as ultrasound and radiographs). After evaluation, we can usually suggest a combination of treatment options, including body-work/chiropractic therapies, acupuncture, injections and other modalities to stimulate healing.

While some sources of lameness, such as foot abscesses and hock arthritis (spavin), are common and more easily diagnosed, lameness resulting from soft tissue injuries can be subtle and manifest as poor performance or reluctance to perform specific movements.

Stem cells are unique is that they can become many different types of adult cell – they have the potential to become different tissues at a different sites of injection! Most commonly, we obtain stems cells from fat or bone marrow collected from the patient’s body. After the cells are isolated, they are cultured over several weeks, generating 10 million or more generic cells. After injection into an area of injury, these cells stimulate and orchestrate healing.