Our bodies, and our horse’s bodies have many different types of receptors – they are in the muscles, ligaments, skin & eyes – in fact, you name it – they are pretty much everywhere except in the bones and the stomach.
So if these receptors are so important, why have we never heard of them – and how do they affect us? Why in 2019 has the world of horse therapy not developed answers to the problems that plague horses? It is not just the horse world either - until last year when I started studying Proprioceptive – Deep Tendon Reflex (P-DTR) I had never heard of them either!
Currently, differentiating whether a horse is neurological or lame is a difficult process. Amy Johnson, DVM, Dipl. ACVIM, assistant professor of large animal medicine and neurology at the University of Pennsylvania’s New Bolton Center, in Kennett Squares says “Musculoskeletal lamenesses tend to be predictable (happening with every step), and neurologic lamenesses are more likely to be unpredictable,” she says. “It is not unusual to see a horse that has both problems, neurologic disease and musculoskeletal disease. Those horses can be even trickier to figure out.”
In P-DTR it is often found that neurological receptors cause musculoskeletal disease and the two are intimately interlinked.
When the receptors are working well we do not realise that they are there – they help us pull our hand back from that burning hot surface, lean in to that itch, and move away from a tickle. They sense the everyday environment and feedback to the brain through the central nervous system. These sensations, also known as stimuli, create a response based on the information they interpret and send it to the brain for action to be taken.
Behavioural problems and lameness happen when the receptors become dysfunctional due to the aberrant stimulus and in turn affect the proprioception of the horse. This then causes a movement to compensate for the receptor that is dysfunctional. Most people have a spot on their body they just do not like being touched. This is an example of a crude touch stimulus that has developed a dysfunction.
The crude touch – which is a light touch to the skin – just feels normal most of the time – until it is touched gently or the wind blows on it and we sense the discomfort. When this receptor is dysfunctional it creates a response trying to withdraw the body from that stimulus. Now imagine that receptor is on the front of a horses face and how a horse would try to withdraw from it and how it would move its head.
The only thing a horse can do is pull its head back, throw its head up or involve the neck to change where the head is – leading to a difficult and possibly dangerous behaviour for you to have to deal with. With a dysfunctional crude touch receptor these behaviours would likely show up as worse in the wind, outside and/or as speed increases (and in turn the wind going past the face and the dysfunctional receptor).
With P-DTR equine therapy, if this receptor was to on the outside of the leg it could show up as a lameness or dishing, for example – as the leg withdraws inwards to the centre of the body from the dysfunctional receptor on the outside of the leg – which in turn puts strain on all sorts of muscles and ligaments in the leg, shoulder and possibly the back. By resetting these receptors I expect that the dishing can be stopped and normal movement restored – but I have not worked on a horse that dishes yet, so this is technically theoretical. If a horse was a human I would say unless it was something you were born with, P-DTR should be able to help!
Receptors are virtually always present in scar tissue. The tissue causes the information that would normally be transferred across the skin to have to find a different way - if it can get there at all. I have seen humans that have had operations or injuries and been in pain ever since with no relief no matter what they do. The doctors and surgeons have no answer, however after treating the receptors in the scars the pain dissipated and the functionality of the affected limb increased.
Having been deeply involved in eventing for over 15 years I cannot count the amount of horses I know that dished, bit the air or a person as they were being tacked or rugged up, displayed some muscle wastage, shook their heads in certain situations or had some other dysfunction that I now see as receptor based.
In horses I often find dysfunctional receptors in the mouth and back – even in horses that have just seen the dentist or osteopath - which explains why some horses never seemed to improve long term no matter what professional we got to see them.
No one at the moment applies P-DTR to horses and so I am on a one woman mission to try and find out just exactly what behaviours in our horses are receptor based. Too many horses have neurological or neuromuscular disorders and we still cannot really do anything about it, except be aware of it, stop exercising the horses to the same level, retire them and in A worst case scenario have them put out of their misery. I really hope that I can show P-DTR to be the future of equine bodywork and encourage others to study this amazing technique and help our horses.
I had one intermediate eventer that was eventually put down at 12 years old because of his worsening neurological symptoms. He did not have them originally which makes me now look back and think receptors were the culprit – if it is not a dysfunction or behaviour they were born with, it is likely a matter of receptors!
This was one of the reasons I ended up retiring from horses and having a break – I just had had enough of all the unexplained problems that we have to deal with and never knowing when the next issue was going to arise that we did not have an answer to.
If your horse has some form of neurological dysfunction, this will often manifest itself as lameness, tight muscles, muscle wastage and/or limited range of motion amongst other symptoms. Muscles that ‘vibrate’ also show signs of being neurologically dysfunctional.
I cannot describe the pleasure it brings me to come back to the equine world with such amazing tools to help other people work out and deal with these mysterious behaviours that our beautiful horses exhibit.
It is a daunting task, but I cannot wait to get stuck in and see what I can find out and treat. Jose Palomar, the Mexican surgeon who pioneered the P-DTR technique is confident that a huge amount of body issues are as a result of receptor based dysfunctions, so much so that he does not operate anymore in favour of teaching this technique around the world.
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Please help me on my mission to raise awareness within the equestrian circles that there are answers to many of the problems we face daily as horse owners. I want to hear from you – what behaviour change in your horse would make the most difference to your life? Please comment with your thoughts. If you would like to have a chat about your horse or to arrange an appointment for please get in touch – ‘phone/Whatsapp +447799078876 or email info@painlesssportstherapy.com
Refernce - https://thehorse.com/148747/is-my-horse-neurologic-or-lame/
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