Somethings not right....
So... Lyric was the surprise today. Liz expected her to be easy and we would just need to work on exercises to supple her ribcage. But... nope. We started off talking and Liz noticed the right front forward and out and then also the reluctance to really stand on her right hind. She did a lot of postural placing work and Lyric kept reverting but then eventually started to stand square or with her left front forward. So then she felt her and... poor Liz. Basically she feels like Lyric is sound... and not painful... but needs to detox. She said she felt like some liquid toxin came into her body and then settled into her lower back, her left wrist and ..maybe somewhere else too. She felt like she wanted to vomit and was dizzy. And... Lyric started doing her rooting/chomping thing... which... was odd because Liz kept sticking her tongue out and wretching. She said she felt like Lyric didn't know where her body was either, but didn't really think it was EPM.
So then we went to walk off and Lyric was... stuck! Like... her front end was just stuck. She was processing hard so I gave her a minute and it took her a good minute before she could walk off. And she lost her hind end a lot today. I told Liz she just feels like her back end gets "offline" sometimes and she struggles and then suddenly her central pattern generators kick back on and she gets the limbs back in the proper sequence and then she can carry on. But every once in awhile... something gets out of sequence and she struggles to get back to the movement pattern. She didn't quite get that bad today though.
We walked her over the ground poles and the first time through she scrambled over them. I reminded Liz that she's been like that.. it's like she has no idea how to rearrange her feet to avoid stepping on poles... if they are in the way, there's nothing she can do to get around them. But the second, third, and fourth time through she was fine and figured it out. So then we went to the trot and I let her go on the buckle. She felt very sluggish like she didn't want to pick up her front feet. But it wasn't the stabby navicular horse feeling like when she was so bad from the saddle. Liz noted that when she went behind the vertical she tripped up front. So... then she had me put her more together, but not too quickly. Do the same "inch my way up the reins" as with the spotties and then find a nice connection length and stay there. And then as she settled, I did inch my way up a bit more. She yelled at me for riding with downward hands though. She said when I do my "increasing the pounds of pressure til you soften" thing, it breaks the line from bit to elbow, so... instead of pulling down, I need to lift my hands. WITH bent elbows. Okay... I'm trying. But it's hard! And it didn't work great. Well.. it did. But it wasn't quick or instant. I told Liz that I was worried that because she felt hollow during this time, I was afraid I would talk myself out of it. So we went back to riding "my way" and while Lyric did eventually come round.. it was fussy and not great. Then I went back to Liz's way and... it took about the same amount of time, and she didn't stay round any longer, but... when she did come round, it was softer and more of a lifted back vs just a "headset" and it felt more like an offered gift vs a forced state, so.. okay... I will do my best to remember that feeling of lifting my hands to follow her mouth, not crossing my inside hand, and then also, what I've been doing... lifting her inside shoulder, weighting that outside hind, and staying soft and straight. But gah, my head always turns in... stay straight head!!
So we played a tiny bit more and then quit. Liz was a bit perplexed and saddened by her. She had me a little worried about Wobblers...or EPM... we talked about PSSM2 stuff too... But then she also thought that it wasn't pain... and it could be helped by strengthening her stifles, even if it's not really her stifles. So... the plan is to do daily (if possible) very short rides working on strengthening and then on days I can... long walks and hills and trotting hills. So basically... do the stifle strengthening protocol but also add in the dressage stuff to help. We figured that it'll only help... and if it doesn't... well, there might be something more sinister going on from a neurologic type standpoint, so.. she'll either get better or she won't and we'll be able to move forward with investigating things then. I'm also going to try to "detox" her and see if I can get rid of whatever awfulness is stuck in there. I also noted that she carries tension in her poll, so maybe I can do some fascial work up there to help her out.
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