Advice - tendons....

[Marnie]

I know this should preally be in vets, but I needed some advice quite quickly!

A friends cob mare has damaged her front superficial flexor tendon on the outside of the tendon- it looks as though she struck herself. She has been scanned and had a first treatment of shockwave about 10 days ago, due to have another treatment on Tuesday. She is on 10 minutes walking twice a day. Initially the leg was quite hot, sore and puffy around the damaged area and that went down and then came up again last night. My friend is very upset and thinks that this is the end and that the leg is never going to come right. My limited experience suggests that while healing the leg will go up and down again, particularly while it is actively healing. Has anyone got any experience of similar injuries?

Sorry, this got a bit long!

 

[ladyt25]

Well, I don't have alot of experience personally with this but we do have an ex racehorse we took on (he was going to be ut donw cos the owner had nowhere to keep him) he is now 24 and, as a racehorse he broke down whilst racing. He obviously was treated and then raced again although he then fell!

He was taken on by a lady (who we got him from) and she used to compete him x-country, jumping etc with no problem. At some stage he also has opanicked whilst tied to a gate and ran off with teh gate attached dmagaing his legs further (me thinks he's a bi accident prone!)

he has been left with pretty bowed tendons but we got him when he was 19 and have done x-country's with him and hacked him out (he's done a 10 mile pleasure ride, jogged practically the whole way!) although he's not exactly kept fit as we really took him just for him to live out his days.

However, it just goes to show they can heal fine, he hasn't ever been lame with them since we've had him (oh except when he put his leg through sheep netting and ripped his shoe off and his tendon flared up - see, accident prone!)

All depends on the individual horse and what kind of patient they are I guess. I would think the leg will swell up slightly after doing some exercise and would assume (although i am no vet) this is all part of the healing process as blood gets to the area?

 

[faerie666]

[ QUOTE ]
I know this should preally be in vets, but I needed some advice quite quickly!

A friends cob mare has damaged her front superficial flexor tendon on the outside of the tendon- it looks as though she struck herself. She has been scanned and had a first treatment of shockwave about 10 days ago, due to have another treatment on Tuesday. She is on 10 minutes walking twice a day. Initially the leg was quite hot, sore and puffy around the damaged area and that went down and then came up again last night. My friend is very upset and thinks that this is the end and that the leg is never going to come right. My limited experience suggests that while healing the leg will go up and down again, particularly while it is actively healing. Has anyone got any experience of similar injuries?

Sorry, this got a bit long!

[/ QUOTE ]

Tell your friend not to panic, you're absolutely right, the swelling does come and go, especially as the horse is having shock wave treatment as well.

The shock wave basically breaks down some of the scar tissue that's forming to encourage the collagen fibres to grow more aligned with the rest of the tendon, instead of forming an area of not very flexible scar tissue. So basically, it kind of re-damages the area a little bit, and it also increases circulation, so that can cause a little heat and swelling.

Tendons do take a long while to mend completely, so you need to give it a chance and plenty of time. This is from someone who has dealt with too many tendon injuries of varying degrees in racehorses, and with many different ways of treating them as well.