Damage to deep digital flexor tendon - prognosis?

[viola]

The damage is to a deep digital flexor tendon right down in the hoof; some navicular changes too.
I wonder if anyone has any experiences with such injury and subsequent treatments?
The horse in question currently has a shoe on that rises the heel by 10 degrees. He tends to rest his leg (fore) a lot. Vets say prognosis are poor...
Thank you for any info you may have!

 

[AmyMay]

People were posting about this the other day.
Here HHO

They all sounded rather positive I thought - certainly more so that my horses outcome

 

[RachelB]

I posted on the other thread too. Prognosis is generally poor, I was given 25-30% for a 2cm tear on my horse's left fore DDFT along the length of the navicular bone. That didn't include the fact that the cartilage attaching the tendon to the navicular bone is either degenerating or forming adhesions. I'm still giving it a shot though as there's no point not, my horse would love to be semi-retired and pig out in a field all day, and hopefully to hack out occasionally! Horses have certainly recovered from tears successfully as was talked about in the other thread.
Has it been definately diagnosed by your vet? Has your vet talked over the options with you?

 

[brightmount]

I thought this was the same thread .. but see it's another DDFT injury.

How big is the lesion, and do you know if it was caused by trauma or due to the navicular changes, as a roughened navicular bone abrades the DDFT where it passes under it if that is the case.

My horse had a 5mm tear and navicular changes. We went barefoot and she made a strong recovery (this wasn't exactly the vets advice, it was a last resort). However I wouldn't like to comment on what you should do without more info.

 

[viola]

QR
Thank you. I am sorry for cross posting, tried searching but the site comes back unavailable every time I try! Thank you for the link to previous posts, will have a look.
The horse belongs to one of my clients and I don't know a full medical report. I will have more details at the weekend but simply wondered whether someone has any experiences with this sort of injury.
The horse has been lame on and off with suspected sole bruising on numerous occasions for the last year and has has various 'shoeing' problems. He always came back sound after a few days of box rest until the last time when he didn't. Farrier advised doing X rays which didn't show anything; he was subsequently nerve blocked and scanned and the full vet report seems to suggest the injury is significant.
It seems that the navicular changes could have been responsible for earlier periods of unsoundness but present acute lamness is due to the tear of the tendon.
The horse has only been used for a low key RC activities. He went lame after a hack. Owner is really sad

I also wondered about going barefoot as a last resort...he is a big warmblood with rather sensitive feet though so transition might be hard...

 

[brightmount]

OK well the pattern you describe is almost identical to my horse's case. What sort of scan was taken, as if it's deep in the foot, only MRI is going to give a clear picture?

You're welcome to PM me when you have access to the report and we can compare notes and scans to see if there are similarities.

I wouldn't say barefoot is the way to go with a severe DDFT injury caused by trauma, but if it's part of a navicular package, then it would definitely be worth looking into. My EP is trained by KC LaPierre and covers South East and South Central England .. and my horse is three-quarter TB so don't be discouraged about transitioning.

 

[viola]

As far as I know it was MRI. I will come back to you when I know the specifics, thank you!
At the moment he has a massive pad which raises his heel about 10 degrees.