Posted by Patty Stiller on April 21, 2000 at 23:20:42:
In Reply to: no heels posted by Rick on March 23, 2000 at 10:17:58:
: If the fiberous tissue of the digital cushion is damaged, how can one tell. I have three horses that I have applied that natural balance shoe to for about one year with no results. My clients are apprehensive about EDSS because of the cost. My clients keep asking if there are any tests used to determine if the heels will grwo with the EDSS?
I am sory that my original answer got lost in the bulletin board glitch..
hee is one again....There is not, at this time any test that is non-invasive to determine the quality of the digital cushion. The quality factor that has been mentioned is from extensive testsd done in microscopic studies at Michigan State University. The results DID strongly show that in horses that had navicualr area pathologies, the digital cushion was consistently lacking in elastic cartilage, among other things.
Asds for the lack of results you have hadm, well there are many factors that may be causing this.
First remember, it is not the NBS shoe itself that is a "Cure " for anything..it is the correct application of the overall principles. Any of the following could be contributing to a lack of results (and I may be forgetting one or two here...
.... "traditional"trimming techiniques that involve thinning the sole,'concaving' it out to the edge so it can't be weight bearing anywhere, weakening/removing the bars, leaving too much heel, thinning/weakening/overdressing the dorsal wall, over sculpting the frog,setting the shoe too far forward,setting the shoe too far back,
making the shoe too wide at the toe quarters, fitting the shoe out to flared wall instead of the true shape of the foot, and so on.
Anyway, I have put on probably seven or eight hundred pairs of NBS shoes in the last several years, and constantly see feet get better shaped. It is the rare hoof that doesnn't reapond really quickly, that is maybe one out of a hundred. it is those feet that I see those really hollow looking heel bulbs, thin walls and soles . Those few I do suspect that there may be a serious lack of elastic cartilage in the digital cushion, as well as elswhere in the foot, but alas, we will have to wait until we have access to MRI's and such to find out for sure...Patty