What joint medications do we use?

Choosing what joint medication to use is an important decision

Which Joint Medication do we use? 

Well this was an interesting discussion with a client today. When we consider medications in to the joint we consider two main families: Drugs versus biologics. 

When we consider drugs the main one that comes to mind is cortisone. It is a very useful drug and previous fears over using it such as destroying the cartilage in the joint are ill founded now. The newer ones we use can be safe on the joint and don’t cause severe damage to the joint. We use them routinely and generally are safe. 

Biologics would consist of IRAP and PrP therapies. Each is great and utilises the horse’s own blood for treatment. We would use them in certain situations such as a younger horse, horses recoverying from an acute injury or horses prone to laminitis. The advantage of them is a regenerative approach rather than just an anti-inflammatory response. 

The big advantage of the Biologics is also the fact that they do not swab so as a  result they can be used when in competition mode. Equally also they do not have the small risk of laminitis seen with cortisone post injection. We do lower that risk and this is because we lower the dose and also select the patients better. Any horses showing signs of metabolic disease are not great candidates for cortisone treatment and would be better with a biologic. 

Joint disease is not the end of the road anymore and as a result we can manage these cases better. 

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