VBIPA

Do you, or someone you love, own or lease horses and pay vet bills? Have you, or someone you love, ever experienced nausea, sweating, dizziness, guilt, and/or anxiety when seeing your vet bill? If so, then you might be suffering from VBIPA or vet bill induced panic attack. Treatment can include drinking copious amounts of alcohol, eating ice cream for dinner, and/or calling your mother to talk you down from the panic attack.

I decided to have the vet out to check Peebs over on Friday.  He was still feeling a bit stiff, but wasn't actually lame. I was wondering if his naughtiness when jumping was more than naughtiness and wanted him checked out before show season started.  We did a lameness exam and Peebs was sore in his lower back, sore in both hocks, and very sore in both stifles. He also had the occasional funny step on his left front.

Dr. W and I talked it over, and decided that since his stifles were worse we'd start with injecting those. Dr. W felt that Peebs' sore back could be from the stifles, but we'll have to wait and see.  And the injections could help with his front end issue, or make them worse. Yay!

The bill ended up being about double what I was expecting. I honestly thought we'd maybe start him on Adequan or pentosan, maybe think about doing his hocks. The stifle injections are $350 more than the hocks, and Peebs need extra sedation. $$$$$$. I guess I'm luck though, I haven't had this big of a vet bill in 9 years, since we were diagnosing Phoenix's ring bone. And it's still nowhere near the vet bill from my first horse's colic surgery when I was 15.  My mom kept that one and gave it to me when I moved into my own place and it's still up on my fridge.

Peebs is on hand walking/turnout till Wednesday, then walk trot work till Saturday.  I tentatively have a lesson scheduled for Sunday but we'll see how things go.  I'm having Dr. W come back next month for spring shots so we might do another lameness exam and see where things stand.