Stiffness, Soft Tissue & Joints – Can Help Really Be At Hand?

We are often asked “Should I be feeding a joint supplement to an old horse? A young horse? A dressage horse? A show jumper? An Eventer? An arthritic horse?” And many other variations of the same theme.

The thing with us is that joints are only a part of the story. Soft tissue works in conjunction with joints, they need as much if not more looking after than the joint. Not only do we have to think about tendons, ligaments but also the fascia which is often forgotten and, is let’s face it, probably is one of the most important.

Looking at the world of supplements is a nightmare, we know. This particular area, joints, probably even more so than the rest. Swirling promises abound and you could quite easily be convinced of miracle cures – unfortunately they do not exist.

Here at Hi Form, we believe that horse owners love their horses. We love ours. Therefore we only believe in providing them with ingredients that we ourselves can eat – oral grade (fit for human consumption) not tech or feed grade. We also believe in only providing horses with ingredients that are natural to a strict herbivore and nothing that is completely alien to them or, more importantly, for their bodies to absorb.  

Most joint supplements out there use:

Depending on the research papers you read, the results are varying and questionable both in humans and horses.

What I would say though is I have never seen a horse go fishing, have you?

Call us weird if you like but we believe in only putting in natural substances into our supplements that can be absorbed by our horses, not ingredients that pass through the horse and are ejected out of the body via the urine.

Being honest, we have not done any clinical trials with ethics committees that are wholly objective and have no interested parties involved. Though we have them scheduled for 2019 for both ProflamAid Plus and Equi?? (our even more powerful sister product, that is yet to be named. The original name has been vetoed by the VMD).

However, we have a ton of anecdotal evidence from 4* Event Riders, International Dressage riders, Show Jumpers, High Goal Polo players, the competing horse owner at many levels. Many owners of older horses have seen remarkable changes in the physiological capabilities of their retirees. Please see the website or the Facebook page for reviews.

That said, as ProflamAid has been around for 28 years, we have had many vets around the world do their own trials. I thought it would be good to show you one: –

Group study conducted by  Dr. J. Rudolf

4 horses displayed degenerative joint disease ranging from mild to chronic aged from 6-15 years of age. All horses were suffering from varying degrees of lameness.

2 horses A & B were administered 60 grams 3 large scoops of ProflamAid Plus morning and night for 7 days. 2 horses C & D were given Butazone powder (2 grams) for 7 days.

After 7 days, 14 days and 28 days the following % improvement results were recorded after 10 minutes lunging at the trot.

                      Horse A           Horse B            Horse C            Horse D

7 days           20%                  0%                     10%                    0%

14 days         90%                  40%                   30%                   10%

28 days        100%                80%                   40%                   10%

After 30 days Horse A and B were sound and the ProflamAid Plus was discontinued after 4 days both horses were exhibiting some degree of lameness.

After 30 days Horse C was still slightly lame and Horse D had improved only slightly.

After 35 days Horse A, B & C were administered ProflamAid Plus at a dose of 60 grams 3 large scoops morning and night.

Horse D was administered a dose of 80 grams 4 large scoops morning and night.

After 42 days, 56 days and 70 days the following % improvement results were recorded

      Horse A            Horse B            Horse C            Horse D

42 days         90%                  95%                   50%                   60%

56 days          100%               100%                 100%                 85%

70 days          100%               100%                 100%                 90%

It was concluded that the Hi Form ProflamAid Plus managed the condition of degenerative joint disease safely and effectively and no side effects were reported.

But why use ProflamAid Plus on a Healthy horse with no apparent issues?

I think the easiest way to explain this, is by using me as an example. When I exercise and I decide to push myself with more weight, more reps, more running, a different riding exercise I find myself tight, out of kilter, not wanting to do anything the next day. I am lucky, I can just reach for the ibuprofen for a short term fix or run to Clare Howard at The Balanced Rider (which I do often).

More difficult for our horses to tell us they are sore, after all we are asking our rigid-spine friends to do things they wouldn’t naturally keep on doing.

This is true for all our horses where we are practising for whatever discipline and at whatever level.

With ProflamAid Plus, we are looking after not only the joint but also the soft tissue, the muscles that are so important to fluidity and free movement. After all if we can unlock a body, remove the tension, have soft muscles then we stand a much better chance of looking after our animals and having them compete for longer.

Because of the type of ingredients used the absorption and utilisation rate is exceptionally high, so it is not uncommon to see changes occurring from Day 3 but let’s be honest every horse has a different metabolic rate so changes can take some time.

For horses that have been injured or have existing conditions we always want to talk to you to understand the history. We will never guarantee success, that is impossible but we have seen success rates of 85%+ across horses with varying injuries.

I could of course wax lyrical for days on end, recounting the success that we have had from potentially career ending injuries, Stringhalt cases, holes in tendons, stiffness, sacroiliac issues, tying up and many more but as we all know the proof is in the pudding.