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How does a Chiropractor adjust an animal as large as a horse ?
To answer this, it is important to remember that the chiropractor is not adjusting the entire horse, but rather a specific joint in the skeleton.
Traditionally horses would have lived on the open plains, constantly on the move, always grazing therefore always with their heads lowered. The main form of locomotion is the walk or trot, only using gallop as a method of fleeing predators, or in play. In domestication, humans have forced confinement in the stable or in the small paddock on to these horses, curtailing the ability to graze little and often, and only feeding them at mealtimes. We then expect these animals to perform a specific task, carry a rider, and perform to the best of their ability. All these factors reduce the desired optimal performance that we require from our animals. Due to this altered life style, we have found numerous reasons for injuries which come under two headings: Macrotrauma and Microtrauma.
Macrotrauma is the build up of little disturbances throughout the body. Examples are riding out on a road with a camber, poor foot balance, saddle fit, unbalanced rider, working on hard surfaces, continual circling, uneven bedding, large slope in the stable floor, poor conformation, and such like. These continuous repetitive mini strains will eventually cause the subluxations and fixations throughout the body that the chiropractor can find and correct.
Microtrauma is construed as the major trauma that can affect a horse, such as a trailer accident, slips, falls, getting cast in the stable, soft tissue injuries to limbs like ligament or tendon strains will influence the system significantly. This is an example of how the system can be affected.
In practice, back problems, leg injuries and muscle damage are often inter-related. An example of this might be an acute lower limb injury causing the horse to alter his gait and carry the affected leg abnormally.
The abnormal weight bearing and altered gait can subsequently overwork or injure associated back muscles. Back injuries can result in increased forces to the joints, resulting in lameness, or gait alterations in the feet and legs, as the animal tries to protect its sore back. Unless the primary cause of the back pain is identified and treated, most horses will have recurring back pain when returned to work after a period of medication and or rest.
Chiropractic provides expertise in the evaluation of back and joint problems that can provide the Vet additional means of diagnosis and early treatment options in certain lameness problems; especially conservative treatment of bio-mechanically – related musculoskeletal disorders.