Deep Digital Flexor Tendon tear - any advice / guidance

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ardleamax

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My boy got injured at the end of Sept out doing a very small XC course. After extensive tests, an MRI last week revealed he has deep digital flexor tendonititis. The tear is under the navicular bone, just by where the tendon enters the pedal bone. There are some synovial masses and lesions.Vet was really negative to be honest and now I'm just fearing the worst. In fact in the MRI report are the words "long term prognosis with deep digital flexor tendonititis is rather poor".

He's booked in to have a cortisone injection into the navicular bursa next Monday. Apparantly if that yield any signs of improvement, the only other option would be to de-nerve the foot which sounds a bit horrible to be honest. I've also ordered some magnetic hoof boots which are meant to aid repair.

Just wondered if anyone else has similar experiences that they could share with me, and whether you think the outcome is really all doom and gloom as vets have alluded to? Some people I've been talking to have said tendons do repair themselves naturally, so is there any chance that it would repair itself over time and he'd be able to return to the same level of work as before the injury? I only do local RC level events usually.

Thanks in advance!
 
The prognosis is only poor with conventional treatments.

The prognosis for a barefoot rehab is much much higher.

I suggest you look at rockleyfarm.blogspot.com where you will see plenty of horses which have had this injury, and contact Nic Barker with a view to referring him to her under what is left of your insurance before the vet hospital spend it on treatments that are very unlikely to work.

If the hospital was Leahurst, they gave my friend's horse an extremely poor prognosis, yet his owner was at Rockley hacking a sound horse two months later.
 
OP: you are about to learn a lot about horses feet!! Welcome to the DDFT club :) I'm sure more knowledgeable people than I will reply to you, but it is def. not usually as bad as vets predict.
 
My mare had a similar injury to yours 4yrs ago, it was found by MRI. She had box rest, hand walking and egg bar shoes for a few months. Shes also had an injection into her navicular bursa. She came back into work and is still sound today. Not the barefoot route atall but its worked for her and her prognosis was not so good at the time. The treating Vet for my horse is a top lameness vet, was in fact one of the Vets for the Olympic team and I trusted him completely. So glad I did...
 
Hello, don't have much time to write a long post but thought you'd like to know that my mare had a low down DDFT tear- poor prognosis, potentially 'ridden career ending' and if she did recover, only light work and no jumping. Fast forward 11 months and she was jumping, fast forward 2 years and she was xc training for 2 hours over 3ft and now she is out hunting for 4 1/2 hours galloping on all kinds of ground and jumping all sorts! (plus the months of heavy work to get her fit) She went barefoot (just took the shoes off and let her get on with it tbh, luckily she coped very well) never had a days lameness since and passed her lameness work up with flying colours :) I didn't dare tell the vet she'd already been jumping when we took her for the work up ! :o. She had an unsuccessful surgery as the tear had formed so much scar tissue, that the tendon couldn't even be reached to shave down the fibres- oh and her in hand walking was a miserable failure as she just reared and took off at 100pmh broncing on frozen ground. So it is possible ! even in the most unlikely circumstances. Tendon fibres are mean to be linear in order to have good elasticity (and less chance of overstrain/tearing, tendon tissue heals with misaligned fibres in a crisscross pattern- but they do realign with time and exercise, therefore regaining elasticity and better function :)
 
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Mine had similar injury diagnosed Easter 2012. Now back in full work and competing again. We did the barefoot route. Lots of success stories on here. Good luck!
 
I have a horse with this injury at the moment but it's in the foot. From what I have read the further down it is the less chance of coming back into work. My horse was diagnosed with an MRI scan and has been given a 17% chance of returning back to ridden work. This was nearly six months ago, he is due back at the vets next week for his second MRI.
 
All the stories above are ddft inside the foot, I think.

Applestroodl if your horse is still shod the success rate is indeed 17%

If it goes barefoot, however, the success rate appears from the many we know of now to be a minimum of eighty per cent and probably higher.

Not only that, but you don't hear the barefoot rehab owners saying 'but I'm careful what ground I work him on' as you do so many shod survivors.

If your horse is not sound, you have nothing to lose by trying removing his shoes.
 
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If this happened to my horse I would take it BF .
There's a lot of information about BF rehab on threads on here and the Internet .
If you are considering this route I would recommend the book feet first by Nic Barker it gives a good overview of the BF thinking .

BF is mainly about the owners time , time to lead about or long rien , time spend provinding tracks in the field etc etc but it's not rocket science it practical and holistic you may well have to learn to do things differently but it's all doable .
 
Thanks all for taking the time to reply to me, these posts have lifted my spirits and nice to know I'm not alone! Vet recommended specialist shoes which he's having put on today but if that doesn't work I will definitely be going barefoot!
 
My mare had raised bar shoes during her 'box rest' (that we had to abandon as she went loopy and just galloped around on the ice when 'walked') . The vets wanted me to pay £100s in remedial farriery from their specialist vet, but my own farrier just gradually shaved down the raised bit of shoes and then eventually removed them. So just something to bear in mind !
 
ardleamax said:
Thanks all for taking the time to reply to me, these posts have lifted my spirits and nice to know I'm not alone! Vet recommended specialist shoes which he's having put on today but if that doesn't work I will definitely be going barefoot!
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Heart bars, wedges, or both? Please contact the farrier Heelfirst for his expert opinion on both. I know I am going to worry you by posting this, for which I apologise, but they are a sticking plaster, not a cure, have less than a one in five chance of working and can create more damage by causing the heels to weaken even further.

Seriously, ardlemax, you've got a much better chance of having a sound horse in spring if you take off the shoes and dump it in a field for the winter than if you follow your vet's advice. Just my opinion, though based on experience, of course.
 
I have gone the barefoot route, when mine was on box rest he was a thick bed of sawdust and my farrier pointed out that as he was standing on soft deep surfuce wedged heals would make little difference.
 
cptrayes said:
Heart bars, wedges, or both? Please contact the farrier Heelfirst for his expert opinion on both. I know I am going to worry you by posting this, for which I apologise, but they are a sticking plaster, not a cure, have less than a one in five chance of working and can create more damage by causing the heels to weaken even further.

Seriously, ardlemax, you've got a much better chance of having a sound horse in spring if you take off the shoes and dump it in a field for the winter than if you follow your vet's advice. Just my opinion, though based on experience, of course.
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Agreed, I wish I'd known this before I'd gone through the heartbreaking years of going from lame to sound and back again, each time a bit worse until pony just didn't come sound again - then I took his shoes off and we haven't looked back :)
 
cptrayes said:
Seriously, ardlemax, you've got a much better chance of having a sound horse in spring if you take off the shoes and dump it in a field for the winter than if you follow your vet's advice. Just my opinion, though based on experience, of course.
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I agree with this - it was the best thing I did for my mare, giving her 18 months off barefoot. Unfortunately for her I knew very little about feet back then, let alone barefoot, and the shoes went back on and she was never 100% again (it was a 2cm tear along the length of the navicular bone, so pretty much the same as yours, OP). I did the best I could for her with the knowledge I had.

The key thing is - the more you do to help the horse in the early stages, the better the chance of returning to a decent level of work. My mare waited for four weeks to go on box rest - that was probably the thing (along with having shoes back on) that kept her from fully recovering. I can't be certain, of course - just do question why the vet and/or farrier suggest whatever they suggest!

Most of all - good luck.
 
My horse was diagnosed with all sorts of stuff in his feet inc ddft damage - now barefoot ,happy and got a great prognosis - the wedges that were put on mine ruined his feet which weren't amazing in the first place
 
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