Hocks and stifles aren’t the only arthritic joints veterinarians can treat.
Most horse owners are familiar with the concept of therapeutic injections to manage osteoarthritis in joints such as the hocks and stifles, but did you know osteoarthritis can also affect the small joint spaces in the neck?
The cervical articular facets and articular process joints can become enlarged and painful, impinging the spinal cord and/or surrounding nerves. The result is often poor performance and sometimes forelimb lameness.
The green arrows in this radiograph point to enlargements of the C5-6 and C6-7 articular process joints.
Dr. Wendy Krebs and Dr. Sarah Willsey are pictured here treating this horse’s C5-6 with a corticosteroid injection.
For anyone who wants to dive deeper into the topic, here’s a great open-source paper: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7915466/
