Collateral ligament or tendon tear - prognosis?

[Happytohack]

Heavyweight mare that was diagnosed with coffin joint arthritis 2 months ago has had 2 joint injections, 1 mth apart, remedial shoeing, bute and rest. She originally went lame quite suddenly 4 months ago. After rest and bute, nerveblocks & xrays showed the arthritis. However, she is now just as lame (or worse) than she was 4 months ago and after a long chat, our vet thinks she has probably torn either the ligament or tendon and that the prognosis is not good - not helped by the arthritis and the fact that she is such a big girl. Has anyone had similar and what was the best course of treatment.
She is only 8 btw

 

[brightmount]

I can't claim any experience of treating a heavyweight horse with this combination of problems, but my 15.3hh Irish Sports Horse had swollen collateral ligaments, a small tear to the DDFT and a degree of arthritis. Her lameness was intermittent to start with, then acute. The point at which it became acute I believe was when the collateral ligaments became involved. Damage to these has quite a good prognosis. Damage to the DDFT isn't so good, but it depends on the extent of the tear.

The main thing is to get the foot in perfect balance. I had tried a lot of approaches with my horse and was at the point of giving up, but decided to go for an MRI scan to see exactly what we were dealing with. Petplan will cover you for MRI. NFU will cover 50% of the cost. It is the only way of assessing the extent of soft tissue damage. In our case, although a lot was picked up, it wasn't terminal, and we went barefoot, which was very successful and over a 6-12 month period the horse came back to full soundness. I was fortunate that an Applied Equine Podiatrist already visited our yard. I don't think I would have been daring enough to try it though if it hadn't been a last resort. I'm now a convert to the logic of barefoot wherever possible.

I also supplement with Pernamax for the arthritis, which is a natural anti-inflammatory that can be used long term, and it has a pretty much immediate effect. On top of that I use Cortaflex to keep her joints mobile.

 

[josephinebutter2]

My horse was diagnosed with navicular and thickened and swollen medial collateral ligaments a year ago. Various treatments and months of box rest later, tried bringing him back into work and still lame.

Has had the summer in the field and he is still not sound. He is ok on soft ground in straight lines, but nothing else.

I was advised by my vet when he was first diagnosed that he had a good chance of a full recovery, but unfortunately not the case.

Hopefully your horse with have a better recovery!

 

[Happytohack]

Thanks for both the replies - very interesting especially about the importance of foot balance. Jo_ sorry to hear that your horse is still lame - are you going to carry on?. My vet's outlook for my horse is not good. She is on 2 bute per day and is still lame at walk, she is also on an excellent joint supplement (Feedmark's Extraflex HA), and remedial shoeing. I have just ordered some magnet fetlock wraps. We are going to re-assess her in 3 months time.

 

[brightmount]

Jo I'm sorry your horse is still lame. Have you tried Equine Podiatry? It's not the same as just taking the shoes off. Have a look here:

http://www.appliedequinepodiatry.org.uk/