My equine dignosis..... I have navicular

So good news, bad news... No immediate surgery, but we have a plan.  Bad news is that there is very little joint space around the navicular bone, some bone wear and damage.  Really bad news (which I am just figuring out now) is that there is no replacement for that area...

So for now the plan is that we get a CAT scan done of both feet in the next couple of months, then Dr. M will figure out how much bone wear there is in that area, and figure out if this is a 5-10 year plan (slow bone wear) or a 2 year plan (quicker bone wear) for surgery.  He's also going to get a new set of orthotics done up that will support and protect the worn area of my foot, and help me walk better.  (sounds a lot like navicular in a horse doesn't it!)

I'm a little less worried now that I've met the surgeon. .Hes a couple of years older than me (long enough out of school that he most likely won't make a rookie mistake but young enough to know the new technology.)  But very nice and willing to explain everything very well and asked us questions to make sure we understood what he was talking about.  His wife also rides at my old boss's place so we had a laugh about horse people when I told him I rode on my broken foot. (When I originally broke it in 2003 I got x-rays, but was told it was a bad sprain.  I went back to work, taped up my foot and started flatting my afternoon horses.  I couldn't put any weight on the stirrups, so I didn't do more than walk/trot.  Next day they called me and told me I broke it but even then I didn't realize how bad it was until the vet got there and I told him what happened and he flipped out on me that I was walking on it.  An hour later and I was in a 1/2 cast for 6 weeks.)

So I'm kind of disappointed that it wont be an easy (well relatively) joint replacement surgery and done, its going to be more difficult than that unfortunately.