Chiropractic care can be very beneficial as a supplemental therapy for your horse. Our Stillwater vets are trained in techniques to help relieve your horse's musculoskeletal issues.

Book An Appointment

Promoting Joint Mobility in Horses

Horses are versatile and athletic animals. Like humans, horses can develop musculoskeletal pain that can hinder their performance.

Chiropractic adjustment offers tremendous potential in animal health care. While it is not a cure for every issue your horse might have, it can offer alternative and additional explanations for ailments as well as provide a complementary therapeutic option.

The practice of chiropractic focuses on the relationship of the structure (primarily the spine) to the nervous system and how that relationship interacts in the complete picture of body biomechanics and movement.

Equine Chiropractic Care | Stillwater Equine Veterinary Clinic | Stillwater

The Benefits of Chiropractic Care for Your Horse

The benefits associated with chiropractic treatment are not limited to performance horses. Regular adjustments can help increase mobility, comfort, and overall well-being for pleasure horses, senior horses, and those recovering from injuries and illness.

Subluxations in the pelvis, back, neck, and poll can affect the function of the spinal nerves that exit between each vertebra, interfering with the transmission of signals between the brain and the body.

Chiropractic adjustments help to restore normal joint movement and nerve function in the spine and limbs without forcing the joint beyond its capabilities. Treatments can help to address many problems in horses, including back, neck, and sacroiliac pain, poor performance, uneven gaits, lack of impulsion, and even poor attitude. It is also a very useful complement to other lameness therapies, such as joint and sacroiliac injections, and it can assist in the assessment of difficult lameness cases.

It can even help to reverse mild physical damage and slow the progress of degenerative conditions, which makes it an ideal, non-invasive component of an overall management strategy for athletes.

Reasons for Treatment

Here are some indicators that your horse could benefit from an evaluation:

  • Poor performance or discomfort when saddled
  • Lameness, stiffness, back, neck, or tail pain
  • Abnormal Posture / Changes in posture or topline
  • Difficulty bending to one side or a 'hollow topline'
  • Reluctance to pick up or maintain a lead
  • Difficulty engaging the hind end or traveling long and low
  • Head tilt, difficulty chewing
  • Uneven muscle development or atrophy
  • Difficulty flexing at the poll, pulling on one rein
  • Difficulty getting up and down
  • Changes in behavior or attitude

« Go Back