Collateral ligament injury

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Slipper

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Anyone had any experience of this? My horse pulled off a shoe hunting and the next day was lame with the left foreleg (fetlock to knee) swollen. Not badly, but enough to cause concern. |Lameness resolved within 3 days, swelling went virtually straight away. Would a collateral ligament injury cause this swelling? I suspected Suspensory Lig but vet says no. She is a bit lame on lunge on soft going to start with,, then comes sound within a minute or so. Sound on the flat and hard surface in a straight line. No point in nerve block as intermittent. Any ideas?? Vet seems to think maybe collateral ligament. I have no experience of this injury. Thanks.
 
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Both suspensory & collateral can show the lameness pattern you describe.
Does the horse show worse on a 10m concrete circle? If yes then that is mor indicative of foot (collateral), and should give you the benchmark to block from.
If trots well on small hard circle then suspensory is more likely although that is quite a generalisation.
 
Thanks. She is worse on soft going than on hard going on a small circle, but the lameness goes very quickly and is minimal. Sound on the flat in a straight line on any surface. Would collateral ligament damage cause med and lat swelling to forelimb? I thought it wouldn't. The swelling was gone in a day.

Also my vet says suspensory is fine. This is from paplation only and again, I thought you couldn't adequately feel the suspensory, hence reasons for doing ultrasounds. He says rest and bute for a week, then just rest, then start working again.
 
You would not work a horse with collateral ligament injury and is only truly seen on a MRI scan. We still have our mare who had a CLI five years ago and we threw everything at her but never came sound enough to compete. If insured I would ask for a MRI scan.
 
My horse had collateral ligament damage in his right foot. The damage occured inside the hoof capsule so there was no visible signs of swelling as such. It can only be diagnosed by MRI, has has been said, because it is a soft tissue injury. The worst thing you could do is to work a horse with CLD as it needs rest if it is ever to come sound. My horse had everything possible done, except for IRAP. Ended up with 3 months box rest, which did not work, and in fact he came out worse because he has arthritis in the same area - catch 22 - one problem to be rested the other to be worked! As lori ann says, if you're insured and want peace of mind - get an MRI scan.
 
Thanks for all the advice. I'm not sure what the problem is as she is so minimally lame. Also, the leg being swollen for that one day doesn't really fit with that diagnosis. If it is an injury there, maybe it's very slight. Vet didn't seem too worried as the lameness was so intermittent. I am though!
 
It is not correct that collateral ligament injuries have to be rested. Conventional treatment of box rest and medication and shoeing has a failure rate of 80%.

Check out rockleyfarm.blogspot.com where you will see plenty of horses with this injury resolved without box rest and with early reintroduction of ridden work.
 
cptrayes said:
It is not correct that collateral ligament injuries have to be rested. Conventional treatment of box rest and medication and shoeing has a failure rate of 80%.

Check out rockleyfarm.blogspot.com where you will see plenty of horses with this injury resolved without box rest and with early reintroduction of ridden work.
Click to expand...

Wow, this is news to me and probably explains why my horse was worse after being rested - just assumed it was his arthritis.
 
I've never heard of collateral ligament injury causing swelling. In your shoes I'd be asking for a suspensory ligament branch scan. I've had one with that and the swelling was lower half of the cannon, and the lameness was both mild and intermittent.
 
Thanks, that's what my initial thought was but vet thought susp lig was ok. That was from palpation only and I understood you couldn't adequately feel those structures as they were too deep. Did your horse recover? I hope so. My understanding is that mild and intermittent lameness means mild injury and good prognosis. Just have to wait and see. She will have 2 weeks off and I will then reassess.
 
My horse had a collateral injury in his front leg and both suspensories gone in his hind , no swelling in any leg, and transient intermittent lameness for a long time before diagnosis. His suspensories when palpitated never showed any soreness, however scans showed a different story! MRI diagnosed the collateral.
Treatment was irap then box rest for about a month then a controlled walking rehab program.
Good news is he has now been sound for 8 months and is in full work, and schooling and jumping, looks like we may be back eventing next spring :-)
 
My horse was fine, she had six months in a field and then went on as normal. Those were the days before they realised that controlled exercise was better for tendon injuries.

I have heard of tendon injuries that can't be felt and only show on a scan. Core lesions that just require a bit of rest and then are fine.

Good luck with yours. Will you let us know if a scan reveals anything?
 
My mare with hind suspensory ligament damage was never sore to touch and was "iffy" when ridden rather than what appeared to be full on lame .... Turned out it was because the problem was bilateral :( moral to my story being you can't assume an apparently mild problem is always actually all that mild.... And apparently even on scanning it can be hard to diagnose some hind suspensory problems so I am not sure I would trust them being ok because of diagnosis through palpitation.

Good luck though and I hope you find the problem and it isn't that bad. X
 
Thanks Kelpie. I really don't know what's going on as the leg (not SDFT region) was swollen on 2 occasions, both after a day's hunting. First time I thought it was due to a shoe being wrenched off, but the second time this was not the case. Seems an odd diagnosis of collateral injury if the leg is up. I'm assuming some sort of ligament/poss tendonitis issue. Resting for a week now with bute, then just resting a week, the going to see if there's any lameness (which, I have to say was the blink and you miss it type, but nevertheless, not quite right). Pretty sure it's not bilat as the injury seemed acute. And cptrayes, I'll let you know what a scan tells us if we get to that stage next week. Thanks to everyone for all the advice.
 
Sound on 10m trot circle on the lunge on concrete and soft today, on both reins. This is 24 hrs after last bute dose. Will have another test tomorrow and the next day to see if this is the real picture or residual bute. If ok, I will restart some work and see how we go.
 
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