Box Rest - how long is too long?

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Kelie

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My horse went lame in her right rear on Boxing day last year. Blocked to her lower limb, no cause identified 2 moths box rest. After about 5 weeks (if that) she went lame again - same leg - this time diagnosed suspensory ligaments - box rest. She had box rest for 6 months and then work in walk, and then trot in a straight line for about 6 weeks but no turn out - seemed to be almost there. Yesterday she was 6/10th lame again in the same leg - i.e. lame in walk in a straight line and not standing on that same leg and is on box rest with 5 mins walk in hand again. She is now going for testing after a second opinion from a new vet (old one was good but needed some new ideas and was at a new yard anyway) but I get the feeling that he doesn't think it is good. If after that much box rest she manages to go 6/10 lame just in her box I can't see how rest is going to help. She hasn't been out now since before the snow at Christmas and the best she has managed in that time is a straight line trot. She is holding up OK but I don't know how much more i should expect her to put up with. I love this horse more than I can say but I just don't know what it is fair to expect of her. I know I should wait for the test results but it is hard not to dwell on it.
 
Difficult times ahead I'd say.

It may ultimately be that you decide to turn her away for a year - even if she's slightly lame and providing the vet approves.

I would be thinking long and hard about her future though....
 
I would agree with amymay. Turnout, even restricted into a small paddock is better than box rest. Box rest causes all sorts of 'side effects'. Filled legs, stomach cramps, stiff joints, stress, build up of toxins in the body etc., not to mention quality of life. I have a TB mare who, last year, came home from an event with a bowed tendon. Luckily the scans showed no damage to the tendon but it still resulted in 7 weeks box rest. After which she went into a very small paddock with sedation. At this stage she was slightly lame, but no heat, swelling etc. Within a day in the paddock the lameness had gone, I'm sure the exercise did help. I don't think turning out (carefully) will make things any worse, just clear it with the vet. Good luck
 
joeley said:
I would agree with amymay. Turnout, even restricted into a small paddock is better than box rest. Box rest causes all sorts of 'side effects'. Filled legs, stomach cramps, stiff joints, stress, build up of toxins in the body etc., not to mention quality of life. I have a TB mare who, last year, came home from an event with a bowed tendon. Luckily the scans showed no damage to the tendon but it still resulted in 7 weeks box rest. After which she went into a very small paddock with sedation. At this stage she was slightly lame, but no heat, swelling etc. Within a day in the paddock the lameness had gone, I'm sure the exercise did help. I don't think turning out (carefully) will make things any worse, just clear it with the vet. Good luck
Click to expand...

Completely agree with this. I hope you get things sorted.
 
It very much depends on your facilities/finances etc I'd say, plus what you do with the horse/value/insurance etc. If this was me, with my set up and the fact that I don;t have expensive horses to compete but whatever comes my way to hack about on and do occasional showing these days, I would turn away and see what happened. She may come sound untimately, or she may be resigned to being a field ornament (if you are in a position to have one) or she may not. Obviously speak to the vet first.

Such a shame that you have had a set back after so long. Good luck to your horse and you.
 
I'd agree with what everyone above says. 'Structures develop (heal) according to how they are used' - if you keep a horse on box rest, it's body will remodel itself to be good at standing still and not much else. If you allow it to move normally in the field, it's body will remodel to cope with moving. After a period of time off work but moving, at least you would know where you were starting from.
 
To cut a very long story short....
My horse was a bit lame, diagnosed with coffin joint arthritis. IRAP started. No improvement and getting very lame. 6wks into treatment he was now resting the bad leg all the time.

Surgery revealed tear of the DDFT, the tendon bits which had torn were then healing themselves onto other bits, so it was ripping more & hence becoming more lame.

Had he not had surgery (we did nerve block again prior to surgery), he would have had no chance of healing the original tear.


During surgery they cleaned it all up and confirmed the type of tear ought to heal with strict management.
5months of box rest / walking in hand (from week 1) / ridden exercise (from month 3) he is better & has been turned out. We still dont know whether the injury has healed enough for a full life again, but the outlook is miles better.
 
Hard question...

Each case varies so much but as a rule we try and get the horse doing a little movement from as early as possible to proved gentle physio if nothing else. Oh and of course to reduce the boredom and prevent them from becoming completely insane!!! :o

Sometimes months of total rest is vital e.g.pelvic fracture etc. I try to get owners to focus on the area rather than the box...i.e. pens in fields are perfectly acceptable as long as the horse is calm and I don't generally worry about the little walk to and fro.

In the OP I'd worry that the horse doesn't seem to be going forwards....does sound like there is a serious undelying issue though. It always amazes me how much no good a horse can get up to on box rest though....I had a case one avulse the SL on both hindlegs while on box rest :eek:

Best of luck with yours,
Imogen
 
iv just had my horse back from kissing spine surgery but before we discovered this problem he was diagnosed with damaged suspensory ligament damage to both hinds. Any way the vets seem to think this the ligament damage was a secondry problem to the kissing spine.

Anyway he briefly mentioned to me that if the hocks became a problem again once hes back in work a new drug has been brought out just recently which i doing wonders for ligament damage both hocks could be injected.

I never asked what it was called but i could ask the vet when i ring them on monday as he was really raving about it
 
Katy- I think the drug might be Tildren. If it is all I can tell you is that my horse had it and injections in his hocks about a month ago and it's been brilliant. He hasn't looked back since. All horses respond differently though, I guess.
 
DollyDolls said:
To cut a very long story short....
My horse was a bit lame, diagnosed with coffin joint arthritis. IRAP started. No improvement and getting very lame. 6wks into treatment he was now resting the bad leg all the time.

Surgery revealed tear of the DDFT, the tendon bits which had torn were then healing themselves onto other bits, so it was ripping more & hence becoming more lame.

Had he not had surgery (we did nerve block again prior to surgery), he would have had no chance of healing the original tear.


During surgery they cleaned it all up and confirmed the type of tear ought to heal with strict management.
5months of box rest / walking in hand (from week 1) / ridden exercise (from month 3) he is better & has been turned out. We still dont know whether the injury has healed enough for a full life again, but the outlook is miles better.
Click to expand...

Read this and thought - OMG this is my horse you're talking about!
He's currently on his first month of box rest with limited walking in hand. Though I must admit to turning him out into an area about 3 x the size of his box every day to keep him sane. We have also been advised to start ridden exercise from month 3 - 1/2 hour - 45 mins walk only.
 
Sounds a bit similar to a horse I had some years ago, got really frustrated with all the different ideas and the horse hated being boxed up, so I took the shoes off and got a good trimmer to trim the feet and turned her out. She went very, very lame and everyone said to dose her up with pain killers and anti inflamitarys.

Anyway I didn't as I took the view that if she was that lame it would stop her over exercising herself and doing more damage and over about two months she became sound.

She was never shod after that but hacked out 4 to 5 days a week in boots, then eventually mostly barefoot. After that it was a sugar free diet, plenty of exercise and regular trims and we had no further problems.
 
OMG ! 10 months box rest ! You must be exhausted. My girl has been lame for 9 weeks. The last 6 have been on box rest.It was initially thought that she had an abcess in her foot (lots of poulticing !) & she even flummoxed the equine hospital.It's turned out to be tendonitis of the superficial medial flexor tendon. . . . We go back up to the equine hospital for a re-scan on tuesday & I'm really hoping they tell me she can be turned out. Has your horse been scanned & x-rayed yet ? I totally admire your dedication. After week 2 of walking in hand, I had to get a behaviourist to advise me on how to stay safe while walking in hand. It worked well for 3 weeks, but now it's just getting too dangerous to take her out. She explodes ! I worry that she'll hurt herself even more ( or kill me ! LOL !). Like you, I adore my horse ( & I'll keep her no matter what !), but I couldn't face 10 months of THIS ! Saying that, I popped my knee out in December last year twice. I was on crutches for a while. I'm a gardener, so it would be handy to kneel ! But I can't yet. . . But I can definitely feel improvement & I'm getting there. . .So the moral of this ramble is - well done you for your love & dedication & patience. I hope it all goes better with new ideas from your new vet. . . . But yes. . .oh dear me. . . 10 months is WAY TOO LONG !
 
Kelie

I would say that your horse has had far too much box rest.

If it is a suspensory ligament then I would expect the horse to be sound by now.

Years ago we would give the horse a lot of box rest, but these days I would start off with a small area so that the horse can move around.

Ligaments and tendons should be allowed to move otherwise they will shorten up and restrict movement.

With all the box rest your horse has had maybe there is another problem that is causing the lameness.

A second opinion is differently what you need.
 
Thanks everybody for your contributions and help. I thought you would appreciate an update since my first post.

Today my little Mare spent the day at the RVC undergoing tests. They have found a large cyst in her Stifle joint socket. Basically (as far as I understand it) because the cyst keeps the cartilage away from the bone any weight or force on that joint causes the cartilage to flex and bend - so no wonder she is in such a bad way poor thing. She is going to have surgery tomorrow then probably alot more box rest sadly. She had a 50/50 chance of a recovery so it could be worse and I am trying to be optimistic. Not sure if it is the underlying cause of the other problems or (as it seems) an unlucky third problem - probably an argument I will have to have with my insurance company when i get the huge bill for the surgery but given that she cannot continue the way she is and she has a reasonable chance of a total cure I think there is no option. I am crossing my fingers for tomorrow going well - at least we have moved on from just standing in a box hoping for the best to no avail.
 
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