Can anyone good with vet-speak help me understand something please? Also in vet.

Nickles1973

Nickles1973

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As title really. Had an email from my vet this morning with some answers to questions I had posed to him about my horse's psd diagnosis. He replied to the question "how bad is it?" with this.
The pathology in his suspensories was around 3/10 with no real enlargement of the PSL on either leg but with fibre disruption in one area and poor fibre pattern over a larger area but with a large percentage of quality fibres.
I'm struggling to get my head around it and could do with some dumbing down I think lol!
I will try again to speak to my vet but he's not an easy guy to pin down (understandably very busy)
Thanks's.
N.
 
Right, what I get from that is that although there is a large area of poor fibre pattern (ie, damaged or incorrectly developed fibres) there is only a small area of significant damage, which is the area of fibre disruption. This area of damage does contain a large number of "quality fibres" which means that although there are plenty of damaged or sub-standard fibres, there are also quality fibres, which is a positive thing as it means the area isn't a lost cause.

Hope that made sense.
 
The suspensory ligament is made up of parallel rows of collagen fibres, when these are damaged the parallel structure is lost, resulting in disruption to the parallel pattern. A poor fibre pattern can be as a result of scar tissue due to previous injury, as when the ligament heals the parallel structure becomes slightly different (and therefore weaker) than a previously uninjured ligament. However, the large percentage of quality fibres the vet mentions makes it sound like most of the ligament is healthy, and there is only a small area of weaker or damaged collagen fibres.
 
Thank you Starzaan! That does make more sense when you put it like that!
What is funny is that I actually asked the vet "how bad is it on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the worst you've seen?" so I suppose I should have been able to work it out for myself! I'm obviously not quite awake yet!
 
He's had a strain which has affected one area quite badly and it will never have the elasticity that it should have. But that area is quite small. The total area that was strained was a lot bigger, but the outer ring of it has healed well, with only a smaller proportion of fibres that have lost their elasticity.

There is hope!
 
Thank's for the replies, I'm yet to actually speak to the vet but hopefully you are all right and the damage isn't as bad as it could have been.
I am assuming that the lack of inflammation means that this is an old injury that has niggled away for a while.
Without speaking to the vet I am still unsure of what treaments are going to be offered if any. Hopefully I'll hear more soon.
 
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