Took my horse to the vet the day before yesterday and got the dreaded news. Your horse is suffering from Navicular Disease! He suggested Aluminum Egg bar shoes with flat pads and changing the angles. Administering 20 grams of bute in the AM and 20 grams of bute in the PM twenty tabs of Isoxyprine in the AM and 20 tabs in the PM. I have heard about barefoot trimming correcting this problem in other horses. Any feed back appreciated? Also, if there are any Natural Trimmers in my area, I have not been able to find any yet!

I'm sorry to hear about your horse. Since I was not familiar with Navicular Disease, I went online to look it up. You didn't say how your vet came to his conclusion, so I thought I would point you to this article from UC Davis Vet School. It might prove helpful. http://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/CEH/pu...-3-bkm-sec.pdf The Navicular article starts on page 8. Wishing you success in dealing with this difficult issue.

Pete Ramey's website hoofrehab dot com is a good place to start reading about trimming based upon the research of Dr. Robert Bowker of the Equine Foot Lab at Michigan State University. Here's an article on Bowker's work relevant to "navicular syndrome":
article on Bowker's work:

http://www.hoofrehab.com/Navicular_story.pdf

Where are you located? I have been trimming using the "physiological trim" recommended by Dr. Bowker for three years now...I am in San Diego.

Please make sure you are giving only 2 grams a bute per dosing and no more than 4 grams in a 24 hour period. I am assuming the 20 grams you stated was a mistype.

Navicular can be very managable. I had a horse (we lost him at age 30 in 2006) who had navicular, he wore steel eggbars and did beautifully as long as he was done every 4-6 weeks If we let him go longer than 6 weeks he would begin to get sore. We continued to ride him and if I knew I was going to use him more than normal I would give him 2 grams of bute the night before, the morning and evening of the ride and then the next morning, just to head off any extra inflammation. I have never personally used the Isoxyprine but have had many clients use it and some say it made a difference and some said they don't think it did. Some studies say yes there is a benefit and other say there is not really. I think it depends on the horse probably.

I think for now keeping shoes on him would be best. Until you get him comfortable. The most important thing is that the shoe is plenty big enough, with lots of heal expansion. I would either get a recommendation of a farrier from your vet or have your farrier speak with your vet and go over the xrays and shoeing perscription. It is important with navicular horses that you keep them on a strick shoeing schedule.
My girlfriend just recently had a brood mare of her diagnosed and it took about 3-4 months to figure out what was best for her foot and what shoe would keep he sound the longest. She is trimmed every 4 weeks and is wearing a regular show with a ton of heel expansion.

There are a lot of options out there for navicular horses, it is just finding the one that works best for your horse.

General rule for shoes. from the third nail hole to the end of the shoe you should be able to put a nickel on its edge and role it to the end of the shoe. Then if you are looking at the foot from the side, you should be able to draw a striaght line down from the heel bulbs to the ground and the shoe should extend back to that point. This will allow for plenty of heel support and foot expansion. This goes for horses who where regular shoes to special shoes. Most farriers don't want the shoe to stick out that far in fear of the horse ripping off the shoe. I have only had a horse do this a few times over the years. If you are worried about them pulling shoes, then put bell boots on. Ones that will go all the way over the hoof and shoe. The good old fashioned rubber ones that you have to pull on work the best.

The only other thing I would suggest is bedding the horse on 6-8 inches of sand, wether the horse is shod or unshod. The sand will give the horse the support it needs at all times.

Good luck and hope this helps.