Headshaking in Horses

Headshaking is a disease that has a variety of triggers. However, it is necessary to distinguish what is a trigger and what is the cause.

When I got a horse for therapy in 2015, which was irregular moving, lameness of the first degree, and all investigations in various specialist clinics only unsatisfactory diagnoses made, this horse was also still headshaker.

I focused primarily on the therapy of lameness by bringing the horse into the biomechanically correct flow of movement. The horse was also free of headshaking from the moment it passed through the body correctly.

Convinced me, when another horse came, which was in the box, so in the state of rest, as well as in the pasture almost panic and shook permanently. This horse took a few months (first once a week, then twice a week outpatient) until a resounding success was seen. But here, too, it could be seen that from the moment when the horse stretched downwards from the withers and the back muscles could swing freely, as the tummy tensions were active, the first steps of the "healing" were initiated.

My method is based on no miracle or esoteric pseudo-medicine but on simple correct biomechanical work with the horse.

My theory is that due to the wrong sequence of movement, the trapezius muscle, its state of tension, pressure and tension, are taken up by the proprioceptive fibers of the trigeminal nerve and directed to the CNS, where they make the trigeminal nerve overreactive. The various triggers (triggers are not the cause) for shaking in my opinion based on an overreaction of this nerve, which it comes to a variety of triggers. Wind, rain, sun, flies, pollen or the well-known symptoms such as eyelid tremor, violent snoring as if a foreign body in the nostrils would be, strong watery eyes, hypersensitive areas on the head in general.

The current state of science excludes allergies, herpes, various vaccinations (herpes, influenza, etc.) for idiopathic headshaking. Although the pathophysiological process in horses is different from that in humans (trigeminal neuralgia), the trigeminal nerve is now considered the cause of headshaking in horses. Therefore one speaks also of the trigeminal mediated headshaking.

A trigeminal neuralgia can not be excluded by clinical investigations alone but requires a very complex equipment, which is used in the horse only for research purposes. (a type of conduction measurement)

As long as the trapezius muscle can not release due to an incorrect biomechanics, the headshaking will not completely disappear. All therapies currently available are pure symptom treatments. (PENS, acupuncture, nasal mesh, UV protection, etc.)
Nor can any healing be done by adding various herbs, administering antiallergic drugs or homeopathy.