deep digital flexor tendon Q / box rest survival...

[shady_lady]

anyone experienced deep digital flexor tendon injuries? how well did your horse recover? my TB has been diagnosed 3 months 'box and small concrete yard' rest

and box rest survival tips please!

 

[DuckToller]

Had two with ddf injuries. Box rest is such a pain, I feel for you and your horse. With one pony, I followed the instructions to the letter. Did 3 months box rest, cut down short feed and replaced with lots of hay. I did do some in-hand grazing to help with the boredom, and let him out in the yard too. The first few weeks are the worst though as they do get used to it after a while.

I got friends to make a fuss of him when they had some spare time, friend's daughter groomed him a lot, and as I have my own yard, I always left someone in next door for him (they stayed in on a rota to save arguments!). I have interconnecting stables too, so he could groom over the door. I let him roll in the school on a lunge line every day but had to make sure he didn't stand up and take off suddenly!

Then it was 6 weeks of long-reining - did my figure good, and got us both out. Can't remember after that, but he was sound enough to bring back into gentle work, and was jumping after a year.

The other pony I did an initial period of box rest, but he was so unhappy and as he was outgrown, I risked turning him out as a companion pony in a small field and after a year he was fine and back in full work.

 

[Sprout]

My horse had such a severe injury to his DDFT that the vets said to even stand a remote chance of being sound enough for quiet hacking he would have to be on box rest for 12 months - that was just not an option for him and he was pts.

My friend's horse was on box rest for 9 months, and he was kept sane by people picking him lots of fresh grass, and listening to a radio!

Good luck, I hope it all works out for you.

 

[hussar]

My horse sustained a 30% tear to the DDFT just above the fetlock in May 08. Because at the time he was a 50-mile fit endurance horse who was difficult to handle in the stable at the best of times I resisted box rest and simply field rested him for 7 weeks. However, the lesion didn't improve in that time so I put him onto box rest for 8 weeks at a local livery yard where there were enough things going on to keep him interested. He lost many kilos of weight and fretted badly. I tried to keep him amused with turnips on ropes, carrot stretches, short walks out in hand to graze, small-holed haynets - but with it being a quite heavily-regulated livery yard 8 miles away there was a limit to what I could do. Had it been my own place I would probably have tried a radio, stable mirror, more frequent feeds, visits etc.

As the lesion still showed little improvement we went back to full turnout in tiny paddocks. He accepted that quite well and a month later we started bringing him back into work. Now, 16 months after the injury, the lesion is down to 10%, he's back in full work and successfully doing 20 mile rides. All being well, I'll gradually step up the distances next year.

Good luck - hope your boy makes a full recovery.

 

[loopylucifer]

mine had some tearing of the ddft and sdft. has done 4 months so far and few more to do! looking good at the moment. have survived the box rest by snak a balls small hole haynets sweads likits radios grazing in hand and lots of ACP!!! Prognosis is lets see!