Exercises for Stifle Injury

StrawberryFish

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25 March 2007
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Well Little Lily has a suspected fractured stifle - she was a 3 legged pony for a while, however, the farrier came 2 days ago and after there was a huge improvement... we think this is because of how he trimmed to opposite leg (he stuck his knee under her belly and shoved her up a bit and forced her to stand on her bad leg) it has shifted the muscle or something daft.
I did some random massaging of the stifle area (much to her discontent) and today there was marked improvement, she is actually weight bearing and walking slowly on her bad leg rather than trying to get it off the groud as quick as she can.

Basically, I'm now not convinced it's a fracture, I think it's a serious muscle injury of undisclosed type
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but after seeing the improvement after a bit of random manipulating, I'm on a mission.

Does anyone have any experience or now of any good exercises I can do with her??
We don't have a pool/river etc
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Oh and fyi she has very little flex of any joint in the bad leg but it is improving slooooooooooooooooooowly and I would also like to work on that
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Sorry, this is all a bit rambly
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lochpearl

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10 October 2007
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Have you had your mare xrayed? from personal experience I would not leave this unattended and I certainly would not be doing anything to the leg until someone more qualified could look at it. You could do more harm than good!

My horse has just had horrific surgery on both of his stifles, they have had to treat huge tears to the ligaments and also have most of the cartilage taken away. None of this was shown on scans so they had to go in to see what the problem was as he was sore on his stifles. Please don't leave it, get the vet to see her.
 

brightmount

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25 January 2006
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I agree with lochpearl, you want to get an x-ray. My horse had a stifle injury a few years ago, which didn't get better and when it was x-rayed there was a bone chip, also the joint got infected. He ended up at Rossdales for a joint flush under GA.

It took about 6 months of rehabilitation, involving hand walking, and then horsewalker when he got a bit hot to handle. Then he was built back up by a professional with a bungee amongst other things to work on each muscle group in turn, as the prolonged lay-off had caused general wasting, especially the hind quarters.
 
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