Anyone any experience of meniscus damage (stifle)?

[LankyDoodle]

My boy is in hospital at the moment, going through a series of tests. He's already had a course of penicillin from our usual vet, which didn't do anything and thus showed there's no infection present. The vet, therefore, referred us to the Western Counties Equine Clinic. He went up there yesterday, settled overnight and had a lameness workup this morning. This afternoon they did nerve blocks and pinned the affected area down to the stifle, which the vet then examined (it's puffy apparently) and said he is concerned there is some soft tissue damage. He xrayed and noted boney changes on the xray, pointing to arthritic changes caused by an old injury, or simply reformed/healing bone from an injury (I was in a bit of a daze tbh).

Then I said 'well why would something that so obviously takes a long time to form, cause a sudden onset lameness?' and the vet explained cartilage damage (meniscus) could be a real possibility, and while he will try to find the level of damage on an ultrasound tomorrow, he really feels keyhole surgery will be necessary to a) note the severity of any damge and the prognosis; and b) clean up the joint if needs be (of any torn cartilage). All with me so far?

So then, once that's done, the vet at the clinic, will inject the joint with anti-inflammatories, and prescribe bute and box rest for the next 2-3 weeks, at which point Lanky will return to the clinic to have the keyhole surgery.

What the vet said that worried me was that if it is a meniscus injury, then Lanky, however sound he becomes intermittently, is likely to have ongoing lameness issues on that leg for the rest of his life. Forgetting the fact the insurance company will never insure that leg ever again, this also means we have a very expensive possible field ornament who I love to pieces but simply don't want to keep going if he will be in any level of pain constantly.

Does anyone have any experiences of this kind of injury to the stifle - costs involved, length of recovery time and most importantly, prognosis?

Thanks for reading. xx

 

[dozzie]

No personal experience as of yet.

Horse and hound article here.

http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/horse-care-index/1370/275076.html

 

[doonrocket]

I have problems with my horses stifle. He is going for surgery next week. It might not be relevant if you know your horse has suffered an injury to his stifle, but if your not sure how the damage was done it may be worth asking if it could be a bone syst. Last year I called the vet as he was stiff / intermittently lame. Nerve blocks show the problem was in his stifle and an x-ray showed a shaddow that could be meniscus damage. He medicated the joint and Jeff improved over the next month to 6 weeks , and then was fine for some pretty heavy work over the next 6 months before he became stiff again.
I was told this would be the case and so took him back to the vet to be remedicated. The vet did more x-rays with a digital machine. This does not give such clear x-rays, but like a digital camera you take more photos. THis gave him cause to take another proper x-ray of the stifle joint on a different intensity - this showed a clear bone syst. The vet reckons following surgery on this my horse has a 70% chance of becoming fully sound ( I think he's a bit optimistic as Jeff is 12 and the surgery is usually used on younger horses).

 

[Spook]

Yes, I knew of a middle wt. show hunter: 6yo I think, big horse 17.2hh. His vets refered him to equine specialists who went through the whole rigaroll then did key hole surgery, he had rest for sometime then started to be brought slowly into work on a supervised/advised programme. The specialists declared him sound, the insurers excluded everything behind the saddle, he was PTS three months later as he was permanently lame.
The cost was in excess of £7000 and the owner had to pay the euthanasia and disposal costs.
The original vet had said it would be permaently lame and advised a claim for loss of use but the insurers wanted a second opinion.
As this was a £15,000 horse in the first place the insrers got off lightly and as usual the vets made a mint.
Thankfully it was not my horse.
Sorry, it's probably not what you wanted to hear.

 

[LankyDoodle]

But how did the insurer get off lightly? Didn't they have to pay out the value of the animal upon its death? When my mare was PTS last year, my insurer paid 2000 in vets bills and then the same again for the value of the animal when she was PTS. We have the same cover for Lanky - 3000 to cover any vet care and the same again to cover his death.

 

[Spook]

The Insurers had excluded any condition resulting from any problem behind the saddle when the premium was renewed after the horse had been considered sound by the equine specialists.

 

[minmax]

Yes, my mare had camera in to have a look in her stifle, not repairable. As she still had a use, ie broodmare she didn't need to be pts. She had the joint injected and all the usual treatment but stayed lame. She had one foal but the damage showed in other areas as she compensated for it. Ended up being put down due to collapsed fetlock.

 

[Madcow]

My Welsh Cob was lame behind last summer. After a full work up at my local vets, he was referred to horsepital. They carried out arthroscopy and found he had a meniscal tear and some calcification of the collateral ligaments. They tidied up the meniscus and sent him home. He had a month box rest, 2 months in a pen and then started ridden work. After the first month the joint was medicated. He also had a course of Cartrophen. That was last August......(touch wood) he has remained sound (on Cosequin and Rosehips daily) ever since and in fact has returned to affilaited dressage and has won his last 3 tests, so it is possible to come sound! Good luck.

 

[LankyDoodle]

Thanks Dressage Diva. He has OCD, though, so I don't know if that complicates matters any?

 

[TangoCurly]

hello!

My mare had a menisical tear in 2000 in her off hind due to being kicked by another horse when she was 7. She went to Liphook and had arthroscopy on the stifle and the tear was debrided. She then had quite a period of box rest (but this was longer than needed for just the stifle issues as she also broke her nf pedal bone at the same time). after about 6 months she came back in to work, still being box kept till she was fully fit, then about 9 months after the original injury she was turned out.

Since then she has been in work, doing RC activities and a few days hunting. At the start of this year i noticed that she wasn't flexing her oh stifle quite as much as the other one and had the vet up to look at it. he agreed there was slightly less range of movement in that joint, but she was not at all lame. he recommended that we kept her work level high to keep the muscles well toned to support the joint sot aht we could extend her working life. he explained that her acutally life span will not be affected by whether we work her or not, but if we want to work her, we need to work her hard to keep the joint supple, it wouldn't be fair to ride her jsut once or twice a week. Seeing as I only have time to ride about once a week, I made the decision to retire her in Jan.

Since then she has been a very happy grass eater. I can see that the joint is getting progressively stiffer, but then again she is 16 and even without the injury I may well have been seeing that sort of change.

it was expensive surgery, combined with the broken pedal bone, then rebreaking the pedal bone when on restriced turnout, then bruising the injured foot when being silly when being brought back in to work (all requiring more consultations at Liphook), our total vet claim was near the £5k limit that we had. Was it worth it, undoubtedly yes. Would i have done it with no insurance, yes.

bye!