I wanted to write this case study for 2 reasons;
1. It demonstrates that your physiotherapists role is about so much more than a one of treatment, it's about helping you to think outside of the box and look at the whole picture.
2. This situation is something that is often overlooked.
Wilson is a 4 year old cross breed who has been with his owner for a few months. He has been very well behaved since moving to his new yard, so when he started twitching at the wither which escalated to full neck and body shakes when ridden, we knew something was wrong. He also twitched when having things done from the ground such as being groomed in that area, being rugged and having his saddle put on. Basically anything that touched him on the point of wither caused him to twitch quite violently. So what was the cause?
We initially decided to have the saddle checked as a precaution but I wasn't sure that was the cause as the twitch was located to an area that the saddle didn't touch. We scratched our heads a bit and thought back, when did it start? It appeared to have started around the time he started wearing a rug and he had become sensitive in the area where the neck of his rugs probably sat, so we checked his rug fit. Sure enough his stable rug was a little big meaning that it was sitting slightly behind the wither and was a little tight over the wither. His turnout was technically sitting correctly as shown below, but the area marked X was the area that he had become sensitive. Both rugs had no neck.
Luckily this occurred to us when we had a gap in the weather (end of November) and he wasn't clipped, so we decided to keep him naked for a week to see if the problem resolved - it did. The weather had now dropped to below 5 degrees during the day and he was getting cold so it was time to go shopping. We discussed rugs and decided to go with ones as fitted below, which we hope will remove the pressure point over the wither. Attached one piece full-necks should do the same. Of course for most horses, a correctly fitted rug with no neck will be no problem at all, but if you are having this or a similar problem it is something to consider altering. I've added the links to these three rugs at the bottom of the page.
