Best way to repair damaged muscle tissues, please? any advice welcome!

kerilli

kerilli

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My mare has a damaged off-fore biceps bracchi, it feels fibrous (even to my untutored hands) and as if it has hard tight cords in it. the other one feels fine, totally normal. (i've been going around feeling horses' biceps for a week now!)
My vet hasn't got back to me about it yet, and i am considering light treatment (Biophotonic Therapy). Any other suggestions/histories, please?
The mare's on light work, hacking out at walk, and schooling long and low at walk and trot only, on trainer's advice, and having weekly massages.
I am happy to give this whatever it takes and as long as it takes, because I don't want it to become a chronic problem.
Any suggestions/advice very gratefully received. Thankyou.
 
The tight fibrous area could be where it is healing and may settle with time, or it could be spasm, which will also settle. Massaging will be helpful as will gentle exercise. Sounds daft, but if it is a spasm, perhaps a warm hot water bottle on the area will help? I swear by magnotherapy.

What about ultrasound therapy?

HOw did she do it?

She is lucky that you are exploring all treatment options for her and are looking after her.

I do not have experience with this and am just making suggestions.

Good luck
x
 
thank you. honestly no idea how she did it, no fall or dramatic incident at all, she must have done it a few months ago, but the symptoms took a while to work out...
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have thought about ultrasound therapy, am waiting for vet to get back to me. ggrr.
thank you, i hadn't thought of the fibrous tissues as being healing, that makes me feel a bit better. trouble is, the equine bicep is very elastic (i found an article on it online:
"Fast runners must be able to protract their limbs quickly in order to prepare for the next stance phase. This is particularly challenging for large animals as their limbs are long and their muscles contract slowly and have a low power output. Here we show that horses cannot achieve the high power output required for rapid limb protraction by simple muscle contraction and that they instead deploy an elastic biceps muscle to store and then release bursts of energy — this muscle's catapult action has an output that is comparable to over 100 times its mass of non-elastic muscle. Although grasshoppers and fleas are known to rely on a similar catapult mechanism for rapid acceleration, to our knowledge this has not been demonstrated before in larger animals." (from Biomechanics: A catapult action for rapid limb protraction - Alan M. Wilson1,2, Johanna C. Watson1 and Glen A. Lichtwark2)
fascinating stuff, huh?
problem is, this makes me worry that if it doesn't regain its total elasticity then she'll end up with a chronic problem.
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My horse ruptured a muscle in her quarters a few years back( so much so that you could fit your fist in the hole!!).
I was told that the fibrous tissues was the healing too. I was advised to keep her in work, walking only and I had to get off and stretch her leg after about 10mins everytime I rode her. I was told this was to stop the tissues remaining fibrous and not being strong at the end of it.
We did the above for about 4 months and then gradually reintroduced trotting/cantering (still getting off and doing the stretches 10 mins in), and after about 6 months she was totally fine.
 
How about investing in a TENS machine? Might be best to get a physio to give you advise on which settings and for how long etc, but they are cheap and I think will be effective enough on the biceps brachii as it is superficial.
 
I bought a hand held electronic massager for our old arthritic boy and now we use it on a few of the horses and they love it. My physio advised me to use it on one of the horses who has muscular problems as it helps to break down any internal scar tissue and increases circulation.

Hope you get to the bottom of it hun.
 
Bounty, i've never used a TENS machine, are they good? would i have to keep buying new sticky pads because the hairs of her coat would come off?!
Llywncwn, i've got a hand-held massager, she's having that already, thanks!
 
My Mum had a TENS machine for her frozen shoulder - was so bad driving to the shops was agony..
She said it certainly relieved her pain even if only for a few hours (shoulder is now fine, though tweeks in cold weather - shes 53 and is full of metal and was the shoulder she broke badly racing)
The sticky pads are seriously sticky - perhaps for horse it would be possible to get the razor out and "shave" her where the pads would need to go?
 
They are fab for pain relief (works on the basis of counter irritation/pain-gate mechanism) as well as stimulating the muscle to help avoid adhesions so they are fairly win-win, and cheap which is always a bonus!

I would suggest clipping patches for the pads, and using surgical spirit to unstick them if they are very sticky, this will make the pads single use though
frown.gif
 
Get a ACPAT vet physio out to see it, might be able to do some soft tissue work on and in the surrounding area. Will also prob be able to advise you on rehab and stretches also.
 
For the TENS machine you can use ultrassound gel as a conductor between the pad and horse, will prolong the life of the pads and will save shaving the hair.
 
We have had experience of this after Spike had his Kissing Spine op earlier this year. He had nerve damage which resulted in muscle wastage.
Now as for TENS this will not work to repair the damage done. TENS just interrupts the nerve signal from point of pain to the brain thus providing pain relief but will not aide healing.
What you need is a trophic stimulator. Very similar to TENS but what it actually does is stimulate the muscle. If your horse has suffered damage to nerves which in turn shows as muscle damage / wastage then there is no nerve supply to make that muscle work. Nerves only grow at 1mm per day so take a lot of time to regrow. The trophic stimulator will contract the muscle without the need for nerves to be present. We use ours as advised by our physio with amazing results in just 6 weeks The trophic stimulators have different settings for different types of problems our lad has his on every other day for 50 mins they cost about £70 to buy but are well worth it.
Feel free to PM me wiht any questions.
 
Have you a local Physio or Chiropractor with an H-wave machine? Whenever Ryan gets stiff or sore and also after his KS op it has been used on him to great effect it seems to really loosen off the muscles and works very deeply to aid blood flow around the damaged area which helps regenerate the muscles/tissues (he had some muscle wastage from carrying himself incorrectly when his KS was diagnosed). Also when Ryan was healing after surgery I found a really good Osteo that did sports massage and that really helped as well, it seemed to keep him going as he worked at building up muscles again. From my limited experience keeping your mare mobile and working long and low as you are already doing is equally important, hopefully some massage will help to ease things as she does light work.
 
I will 2nd H-wave therapy. Spike has also had this after his KS op and its done a lot of good. Find yourself a good physio and they should point you in the right direction.
 
TENS and Muscles Stims are pretty much exactly the same machine. By manipulating the settings on a TENS machine can give you a muscle stimulation also. it is just a case of understanding what each setting does and what you want to do. ie pain relief via the pain gate theory etc or a bit of both or muscle stim. Tens machines you can get cheaply for £30.
H-wave very similar to tens but different wave formation. very expensive machine and a bit outdated...
There are much better alternatives out there especially manual techniques
 
I'm sorry but they are actually very different

TENS
A Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulator, more commonly referred to as a "TENS unit" and pronounced /ˈtɛnz/ tens, is an electronic device that produces electrical currents used to stimulate nerves through unbroken skin. The name was coined by Dr. Charles Burton.[1] The unit is usually connected to the skin using two or more electrodes. A typical battery-operated TENS unit consists of a pulse generator, frequency and intensity controls, and a number of electrodes
TENS is considered a method in the treatment of pain [2], and has a wide following; still others maintain that it is ineffective. A 2007 meta-analysis of studies going back many years indicates that TENS is an effective treatment for chronic musculoskeletal pain[3].
In palliative care and pain medicine, TENS units are used in an attempt to alleviate neuropathic pain [4] (pain due to nerve damage). Some patients benefit from this approach, while others may not, depending on individual differences [5] , and pain threshold [6]. Further use is documented in the attached references: in obstetric care, particularly in labour [7]; knee pain[8] [9] [10]; lithotripsy or bladder-stone removal [11]; limb pain [12].

Trophic Stimulator
Trophic Electrical Stimulation (TES) is applied to muscle with the specific purpose of influencing its metabolic pathway. It helps the body in the natural healing process and prevents or reverses the changes associated with atrophy. Basically it helps with the nutritional growth and development of the muscle. It operates on frequencies similar to those used by the healthy nerve and therefore operates on both the red/slow and white/fast muscle fibres.


They are very a like to look at but actually do very different things.
 
You don't need to clip patches to use the TENS machine, my physio said to use blobs of hair gel (wilkinsons do a very cheap one).
 
So the lectures I had by a top guru (doing MSC in Physio) only 2 months ago is talking cr*p then? It was brought to our attention that the Tens and Nmes have identical waveforms and the current capacity is identical in the portable units. the only difference is the manipulation of the waveform using the dials. therefore it is possible to get m/s stim with a tens as well as pain relief.
 
[ QUOTE ]
So the lectures I had by a top guru (doing MSC in Physio) only 2 months ago is talking cr*p then? It was brought to our attention that the Tens and Nmes have identical waveforms and the current capacity is identical in the portable units. the only difference is the manipulation of the waveform using the dials. therefore it is possible to get m/s stim with a tens as well as pain relief.

[/ QUOTE ]

Haven't a clue but I use TENS all the time and have been to many a seminar on the use of them in pain relief (i'm a midwife) I also own one and own a trophic stimulator and there is no way I could get the TENs to do the same job as the trophic stimluator no matter how much I fiddled with the dials.
In my eyes what I posted describes their different jobs and I just can't see how they can be one and the same thing..........................................
 
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