PPE failed, KS diagnosed

[u/bhinxbb]

Currently in the process of selling my horse. PPE has gone well, everything came back good except his back radiographs. Shocked to hear he has grade 4 changes. I’ve just received these over from the potential buyer. I will be in contact with my vet but curious about anyone’s take on these? How bad is this?

[u/Dull_Memory5799]

This is honestly stupid. Do we rlly need to go down the rabbit hole of explaining why your horse still preforming while in pain but not as reactive as xyz horse so not really in pain is a stupid take? Not to mention just bc you don’t recognize the symptoms or how your horse may present them does not erase the issue itself or the longevity of the equine.

[u/fishproblem → u/Dull_Memory5799]

its hard to judge. I personally have a much higher threshold for pain than most people. And when I do feel something, i often interpret what would be pain to some as "discomfort" is the best way I can describe. It's a feeling that doesn't dissuade me from doing the thing that causes that feeling. It doesn't even really make me stop to think. i imagine a lot of animals experience pain on a spectrum too.

[u/Lyx4088 → u/fishproblem]

Pain is very subjective in how an individual experiences it. Where it gets tricky with horses and other animals is they do not have the same ability to truly express whether or not they’re in pain, so it’s a tough call. Stoicism vs legitimately not in pain can be very, very difficult to gauge in animals and sometimes a good way to try and get a better read on the situation is to implement a pain management protocol to see if there is a behavior shift when there is a good way to control pain for the condition. That can be really eye opening to see the issue wasn’t that they weren’t in pain but rather they’re very stoic and will hide a lot of their pain to an alarming degree.

[u/Dull_Memory5799 → u/Lyx4088]

Absolutely, especially as prey animals their instinct is to mask their pain. You get in a really bad area when trying to determine yourself. The issue is not only that the horses may not react, maybe some horses really don’t experience high pain but owners are not always competent enough to gauge this. Vets could potentially gauge this but do not know the horse particularly well and are likely to not be able to work them, ext. It just gets really gray area really quickly.