Diagnose my tendon injury before the vet!

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DuckToller

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I have my suspicions as to what my pony has done to his off hind, but wondered what everyone else thought. Photos not great, but show the swelling.

Vet coming tomorrow (clipping all my own work!). Chocolates to those who get it right :)

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Tear most likely of the ddft within the digital sheath. Probably concurrent annular ligament thickening and may or may not have manica flexoria damaged also.
 
Looks and sounds like our little mare - she had severe tenosynovitis of the distal flexor tendon sheath as a result of a significant superficial flexor tendonitis lesion. Left Hind.

Our mare had surgery and is now at week 10 of ridden rehab - 1 hour daily in walk. We start trot in short bursts over the next 3 weeks.

I am using a Microvet therapy unit twice daily at the site to speed healing and that has been really impressive in reducing the swelling significantly.

This is a pic of her post op:

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Good luck!
 
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Sorry, forgot to give background info as went off for a dog walk.

Went xc schooling, seemed fine. Next day huge fat leg, did't feel that much heat, thought initially it was mud fever as he had a couple of scabby areas and he always goes overboard with any reaction. He was lame in trot and reluctant to walk.

Kept him in and then clipped it and realised it was tendon based. Once clipped the heat was more obvious.
 
glenruby said:
Tear most likely of the ddft within the digital sheath. Probably concurrent annular ligament thickening and may or may not have manica flexoria damaged also.
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Just what I was thinking - although not quite as technically as you have put it (off to look up manica flexoria...)

Whatever it is, I am thinking long term recovery sadly, and this super chap has so many other health issues to contend with, he doesn't need any more.
 
Llewelyn said:
What is a Microvet therapy unit? And is the 10 week recovery total post op, or was there a period of box rest?
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Yes my mare was on box rest for 4 weeks, which then turned into 6 because she got an infection at the incision site unfortunately. Then she could be turned out into a small paddock and we started inhand walking for a couple of weeks around the manege to ensure she flexed the fetlock and then at week 8 we started ridden work escalating from 10 minutes a day by 5 minutes a week up to an hour a day now at week 10.
I was surprised at how long the recovery is :( we need to do a further 2 weeks and then introduce bursts of trot up to 15-20 minutes by week 16. I assume she will be fully rehabed by then - not completely sure though.
The micro current unit is fab. I know it works as my daughter used it on her repetitive strain injury and it really helped her. There was a thread on here about Arc therapy which is identical technology at twice the cost! It reputedly shortens the recovery time and I know the swelling reduced instantly once I started using it.


http://www.microvet.co.uk/
 
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That sounds very similar to my mare's injury! I would say a lesion of the SDFT which would show up on scan but also a possible tear of the manica flexoria which won't show up on scan. Mine had surgery 7 weeks ago to sort lesion of SDFT but they then discovered tear-in Manica flexoria!
 
Ooft! That's nice! I think it's safe to say that it will be a year in the recovery - sorry! All is not lost though and surgery isn't always required.

My lad put a 50% hole in his SDFT around the fetlock taking out part of the sheath as well which completely ruled out stem cell treatment. He spent 5months on strict box rest before he broke out and spent 3/4hour hooning round the fields - yes plural as he kept jumping the bloomin fences! So he got scanned a month early. From an original prognosis of - try and get him field sound - we went to one of - I may have my ridden horse back to full health! He had done no more damage for his jaunt and the hole had reduced to 5% with the sheath filled in nicely and 90% of the repair work was tendon fibre and not scar tissue - bonus! It was decided that 3 more months strict box rest should heal it completely and it did. So at 8 months he was allowed out for short walks. 3 months of gradual walking he was allowed to be turned out. He had no therapies, he had no ops, he just had box rest, good bandaging, good food and the only supplement he got was MSM 10,000 - I can't say if that was what worked or not but something did! He was no spring chicken either as he was 14 when he did it!

Hopefully it will be all bark and no bite. Best of luck with the vet tomorrow!
 
looks exactly like my mare's hind leg did - she had a ~50% hole in her deep digital flexor tendon. Took about 8-9 months for her to come completely sound. We're about a year on now and have started working her in the last month or two (other things delayed the start of working her) She's competely sound even doing fast work although it swells up similar to a windgall occasionally however vets have said this is to be expected.

In short if it is a hole in the tendon then the longer your horse gets out of work the better but it's not the end of the world, they can and do recover and come back into full work

I hope the scan is good
 
Looks like it could be a tear of DDFT. If it is, friend'd horse had same injury, had op followed by.a few weeks box rest then slowly brought back into work very successfully. Let us know what vet says & good luck.
 
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