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Back Problems in Horses: Understanding, Recognising, Treating – and Above All Preventing Them
Back Pain as a Lifestyle Disease in Humans – and Horses
Why does an article about back problems in horses start with back pain in humans? Let's put it this way: both horses and humans currently lead lives that differ quite a bit from what evolution optimised their musculoskeletal systems for. That makes these two topics considerably more closely related than you might initially think, and what we know (and don't know) about back pain in humans reflects the situation in horses in remarkably similar ways in many respects – even though there are, of course, a number of human- or horse-specific particularities (humans don't walk around in ill-fitting saddles, horses are less prone to disc problems...), which we will also address below.
A Poorly Understood Condition...
Back problems in humans are more widespread than almost any other physical ailment – and yet medicine understands them less well (and treats them less successfully) than many rare diseases. Of course, there's no shortage of explanations, or attempted explanations, for tension, pain and restricted mobility: as causes of pain, wear on the facet joints or intervertebral discs is frequently cited, along with the compensating bony outgrowths on the vertebrae (spondylosis). But these explanations clearly fall short: we now know that people without back pain show roughly the same degree of wear on cartilage, bone and joints as pain patients. And in many people suffering from pain, conventional diagnostic tools (such as X-rays, MRI or CT scans) reveal no notable physical changes at all.
… But Actually Quite Simple, Too
The rather vague statement that disturbances in the complex balance of muscles, ligaments and skeleton are the underlying cause of most back problems is about the best and most accurate thing that can be said on the subject – and alongside our lifestyle (think: sedentary, low-activity living), the psyche can play a major role here too. That makes back pain a genuine lifestyle disease – holistic in origin, somehow symptomatic of much of what goes wrong in modern everyday life, and really only curable through something that is as simple to say as it is hard to actually do: changing our everyday habits.
Have We "Infected" Our Horses, Too?
The crazy thing is: even in horses – which we brought into our lives to create a relaxed, athletic, nature-close counterbalance to our often physically and mentally unhealthy everyday lives – back problems are now almost as frequently discussed as they are in ourselves. What happened there?
But let's set that question aside for a moment and first ask ourselves: how do we actually know that/whether horses have back pain? Read on ... -> Recognising Back Pain in Horses
But let's set that question aside for a moment and first ask ourselves: how do we actually know that/whether horses have back pain? Read on ... -> Recognising Back Pain in Horses
By the way: Iberosattel® makes back-friendly, individually fitted baroque- and dressage saddles: