lameness evaluation

Question
I have an 11 year old friesian. He has never taken a lame step until about a month ago. He was off on the left front. I had a vet evaluate him, and he recommended putting him in wedges and bar shoes after xraying his ankle. He diagnosed him with coffin bone arthritis and injected his coffin joint. We gave the horse a week off with the new shoes and joint done. The vet put him on a lunge line this morning and he was still lame on the left front. The vet now recommends taking the wedge pads off and reducing the angle and says I may need to consider retiring him. I got on to ride him for a second bareback after he left and the horse felt sound. No hesitation to move, no head bob, nothing. I am now not sure what to do. listen to the vet and change the shoes, or do nothing and start riding him again... any advice? he was barefoot for 3 years before this all started this past month and had a bad trim just about a year ago that we haev still been trying to fix when this all came up a month ago.

Answer
Ashley,

I think you may want to get a second opinion from another vet. I know it may be expensive, but I would not ride him until I was more sure of what was going on.

I know it is tricky when you start using wedges, etc,and changing angles on feet as it can cause problems in the rest of the horse's body.

Is your farrier really experienced....you can get his opinion.
It does not make sense to me that he was lame when the vet was there and then was all right a bit later on.

Your vet may be great, but make sure that you get a vet that works a lot with horses. Diagnosing lameness in horses is a specialty, and needs the input of someone who does it all day, every day. (in my opinion).

Mitzi