Ddft injury in foot

Yess Jessica Rabbit, I have been speaking with more people recently who have success stories to tell about there horses coming back - it does seem to be that time is the key factor!!

What Magnetic boots did you get - just looking into these now!!

I used the Veredus ones, they have nice (non sweaty) padding that you can wash, they don't get as sweaty as the neoprene ones : )
 
I havnt actually,will have a look.he just has maxavita mussels at the moment for his hock.
Jessica rabbit how long did yours take to recover?and what level of work does she do now?

Hmm, about 3 months to get back into light work, back jumping after a year ..but don;t do as much x country as I used to, just to be on the safe side...
 
Mines a long story so i will condence it a lot, but my WB damaged his Impar lig & DDFT in 2010. His DDFT had also adhered it's self to the Impar lig it was a real mess inside his foot.
Prognosis was very poor from Leahurst & my own vets, i went along with Heartbars for 4 weeks & had a bursa injection done. But the shoes made the situation worse & i knew i should of left him barefoot.

So i did the barefoot route, unfortunately at the very begining i used my farrier.
He trimmed him as if he was about to put a shoe on & ended up making my boy extremely sore. After this i moved to a BF trimmer, long story but i went through 2 BF trimmer in a short time.
Current trimmer is fab & im extremely happy with her.

My boy was on box rest for 6 months & then went out in a T/O pen for another 6 months during this time he did in hand walking. He finally became totally sound last April & after a slow rehab under saddle he is now back working Adv level dressage.

He is actually working better than ever tbh more forward & has a fantastic movement.
I will never put shoes on this horse again as not only does he move better without he has the most lovely rock crunching hooves now which are healthy & he's sound.
 
Mines a long story so i will condence it a lot, but my WB damaged his Impar lig & DDFT in 2010. His DDFT had also adhered it's self to the Impar lig it was a real mess inside his foot.
Prognosis was very poor from Leahurst & my own vets, i went along with Heartbars for 4 weeks & had a bursa injection done. But the shoes made the situation worse & i knew i should of left him barefoot.

So i did the barefoot route, unfortunately at the very begining i used my farrier.
He trimmed him as if he was about to put a shoe on & ended up making my boy extremely sore. After this i moved to a BF trimmer, long story but i went through 2 BF trimmer in a short time.
Current trimmer is fab & im extremely happy with her.

My boy was on box rest for 6 months & then went out in a T/O pen for another 6 months during this time he did in hand walking. He finally became totally sound last April & after a slow rehab under saddle he is now back working Adv level dressage.

He is actually working better than ever tbh more forward & has a fantastic movement.
I will never put shoes on this horse again as not only does he move better without he has the most lovely rock crunching hooves now which are healthy & he's sound.

That's a great story to give hope to people in this situation .
 
My horse did his DDFT 2 yrs ago.
He did have surgery, but by the time he went under he was so lame, he was almost on 3 legs (wrong diagnosis to start with).

Anyway, he was on about 6 months of box rest.
The first 3 or 4 months was in hand walking twice a day, building up from 5 mins to 20mins.
Then I started riding twice a day for 20mins. This increased to about 40mins, and then I introduced trot work. The trot was introduced gradually into the 40mins and we built up to almost 20mins trot.

I then couldn't cope with the box rest and chose to put him out in a field (he did the injury in the field). He then had a month turned out and I continued to ride once a day to the same level. I then started canter work on the 7th month.

He had egg bar shoes fitted.
I used Blue chip dynamic.

He is back on normal shoes and still on the dynamic. However, he is in full work and completely sound. I choose to not jump him any more, but we still take on ditches and banks out hacking.

He does see an Osteo every few months.

Good luck, mine was worth it, but hard work.
 
Oooooh, this thread is making me feel MUCH more positive about Indi's prognosis, Alo, you have he joint medicated tomorrow don't you? Best of luck and let me know how it goes!
 
Thought i'd share a friend's experience.

She has a very sweet, though highly strung arab x nf x quarter horse. He has the body of a forester, brain of an arab and worst of all, the awful feet of a quarter horse! He was broken in at 6 and at 11 yrs of age had done very little...mainly hacking walk and trot, odd canter. Never jumped.

Last year he went very lame, vet thought it was laminitis so box rest ect which did not sit well with him. Came back sound but then went lame on other foot so x rayed and found a small stress fracture in his pedal bone. He had t/o in a v small paddock, bar shoes fitted and after more time off was bought back in to walk work, 6 weeks later he went lame again.

Insurance finally agreed MRI, the report that came back was VERY long. Basically everything that could be broken was, DTFT had holes on both feet, lots of the surrounding ligaments were also damaged and the both pedal bones had 'bullet holes' which I think they said were due to lack of circulation. Vet said 'You need to make a decision' which basically meant she had to consider PTS as he didnt think he would ever be sound.

At the same time my own horse was/is recovering from a tendon injury and I had decided to go down the barefoot route with him. Having read Rockley's blog and been on the barefoor forum I suggested that she try it with her boy.

Long story short, 8 weeks after MRI we took pony back to vets. He was completely sound in a straight line and on a left circle, very slightly lame on right circle. Vet was very surprised and has said to begin walk work again with him, without shoes. He has been doing that for several weeks now and tbh he has never looked better. Landing heel first and completely sound. Even when he has his mad 5 mins in the field. Only time will tell whether he, and my boy stay sound but both had guarded prognosses and well so far, so good.

Good luck with your horse. I thoroughly reccomend trying barefoot.
 
Charem,thank you for your story,it defiantly sounds promising!
My horse now has got heel wedge shoes fitted,after a long debate with farrier and vet this is what they decided to do,again,due to insurance purposes I have to kind if be governed by what they suggest.however,both are open to the barefoot suggestion and are prepared to go down this route if this doesn't work.
SarahHowen,we didn't have the joint injected in end,we just did the block,there was some improvement but not masses,he is being re-assessed in 2weeks,carrying on with the walking and box rest till then.good luck for Friday,let me know how you get on!


Sarah,
 
ALO, i would really keep a close eye on the wedges, ime they cause more problems & solve very few.

My horse was also under the direction of Vets & Insurance but i rung them all up & told them i was taking the horse barefoot. I had no issues & it didnt cause a problem with the insurance. After all there was nothing really for the Insurance to pay for once the MRI was out the way & i had stopped the remidial shoeing.

I wouldnt say my own vet was that chuffed about barefoot but he didnt cause a problem when i explained all my research to him. He does still think that im going to shoe my horses though, & you would think with all the success storys around with BF horses they would be a lot more open minded but some vets arnt. Just remember it is your horse not the Vets.
 
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How long did you have the shoes on for dressagecrazy?did yours also injure the tendon in the foot?I must admit I am concerned about the effect it's going to have on the rest of the legs and did voice this.what level if work is yours back doing now?
 
Sorry,have just read your original post and saw you've answered the above questions already!thanks for your advice though,we are having another re-assessment in a couple of weeks so will defiantly have another chat then.
 
So,after a lot of debate,shoes are now off and we are trying the barefoot route.I have been in touch with rockley and Nic has given me some advice,I'm going to attempt to do the rehab at home initially and see how we get on.
Any hints,tips or additional advice would be much appreciated :)
 
So,after a lot of debate,shoes are now off and we are trying the barefoot route.I have been in touch with rockley and Nic has given me some advice,I'm going to attempt to do the rehab at home initially and see how we get on.
Any hints,tips or additional advice would be much appreciated :)

Great news, good luck :D. Imho the most important thing is to listen to the horse and chose your management accordingly. Hope things work out for you!
 
Just an update for anyone interested. Had a jump lesson for the first time since his injury and he felt amazing :) we still have naked feet and so far so good. It's beena long road with lots of ups and downs and I never thought we'd get to this point!thanks to all that offered advice and took the time to reply to my posts. Very happy :)
 
Thats really good news, I am just starting out with a horse with a ddft tear in the foot, she is currently on box rest and have started week one of walking. She went to newmarket to be scoped and have it all cleaned up. Your post gives me hope that horses do come sound again after. How long did it take to get your horse sound ?
 
Thats really good news, I am just starting out with a horse with a ddft tear in the foot, she is currently on box rest and have started week one of walking. She went to newmarket to be scoped and have it all cleaned up. Your post gives me hope that horses do come sound again after. How long did it take to get your horse sound ?

Is your horse shod GA? If so, the prognosis is nowhere near as good as a barefoot rehab.

Great news Alo, a year in and back jumping. I hope you both go from strength to strength.
 
My horse has a possible ddft injury. He blocks to the foot and x rays showed nothing. He is going for an MRI scan next week if no improvement. Been on box rest for almost 3 weeks. If it is this I think I will consider having all his shoes off. The whole management of it worries me thou. He lives out and we have a lot of grass. I have no means to keep him in on a permanent basis, he is on box rest in a sheep pen the farmer let me use as a temporary measure.
 
Gingerarab, he was diagnosed Easter last year but had been lame since the end of February. So it's been just over a year. We would have probably been sorted a little earlier but he had an abscess in late December and ended up having 8 weeks off. Mine couldnt have surgery as the area was too inaccessible. He wouldn't do box rest either, the walking out got a little too dangerous so he went out in a small pen next to my friends horse who was also injured!
Mine had additional complications in that he has spavin right hind and also had a previous stifle injury on the same leg which made his prognosis more guarded. I was told by the vet I could go loss of use as there was only 20 percent chance he'd come right again to even hack :(
My vet saw him trot up the other day and said its the best he's seen him move behind for a long time :)
Echo the above about shoe removal, it's been a steep learning curve and taken time but I think we're finally getting there, mine had wedges in originally, I had them taken off after 2 weeks!!
Good luck to both of you, PM me if you want anymore info.
 
That's great news ALO. Its great to hear a success story.

Mine has just been let out in his field today (in a very small area) for the first time after a month of box rest for a DDFT tear in his foot. He has had his navicular bursar injected and he is currently in heel lifts to take the strain off the tendon, although these will be reduced with every shoeing. On his first visit back to the vet one month since diagnosis he is already 98% sound so we are very pleased with progress. I'm now on to in hand walking for 5 minutes each day and building up to 20 minutes over the next 4 weeks before going back for him to be checked again.
 
Good luck with yours and good luck with the in hand walking! Had to paddock rest in end as my normally sane horse turned into a monster!
 
Hi my boy was diagnosed with this last year in a hind, so we treated with cartrophen and tildren, no box rest, walking in hand building up to 20 mins after Christmas, then started ridden work starting with ten mins building up to bout forty only walking, also and this was the clincher I think, I removed his shoes and started trying to improve his diet and hoof quality and he is now been signed off from the vet and he is being ridden in all three paces for about 40 mins 5 times a week and is staying sound. I have everything crossed, but he seems really good at the moment, good luck.
 
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