Fractured Jaw

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EventingMum

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I wondered if anyone had any experience of a horse fracturing their lower jaw?

We were returning from a dressage competition yesterday – only a short half hour journey away. Just a few hundred yards from home there was a slight noise from the horses, at the time I assumed that one had given a little kick out, nothing more as both travel well usually. However when we dropped the ramp my son unloaded the mare and I went to undo the partition to get Sam out I saw a lot of blood around his mouth.

Initially I assumed he had bitten his tongue but it soon became clear that his jaw was mis-aligned. Son managed to hold the jaw to stabilise it - fortunately he has a good knowledge of oral anatomy being an EDT - and vet came within 20mins only to confirm what we already knew. We spent the evening at Weipers Centre (Glasgow Vet School) while they x rayed and wired his jaw. It was a compound fracture on one side and closed on the other and they initially thought it would be reasonably straight forward to wire to the tush on one side and the molars on the side where it was fractured behind the tush. However it was more difficult than the x rays indicated and took nearly four hours to do and whilst doing it they inadvertently fractured it further back so both sides are now wired to the molars.

Today poor Sam is very sore and swollen, he is also not happy with the vet school food but did perk up when I took some of his own feed and was desperate for a cuddle. He is to have the wires in for at least 8 weeks, assuming they hold and no complications set in with bone slivers needing to be removed. Hopefully we will get him home in the next week or so and will monitor the wires ourselves. However he is always very mobile with his jaw, he does a great rabbit impression twitching his nose and loves to mouth things so I am concerned this habitual movement will cause problems with his recovery. In fact we think this was the cause of the injury as it seems he had had his lead rope in his mouth in the lorry as it was covered in blood near the tie up ring.

Anyway to get to my point; any experiences of recovery from this type of injury would be most welcome. Also to possibly give us hope, have many horses returned to competitive work afterwards? As well as being a great character Sam is an intermediate eventer (did his first CCI2* last year) and means the world to us but doesn’t take kindly to the quiet life. He is incredibly strong xc so bitting and nosebands may be an issue if we get that far. We know there is a long road to recovery (fingers crossed) and his welfare is the paramount consideration so any spare vibes going would be much appreciated. (Sorry for the length of this too)
 
I've known a couple of horses that fractured their jaws and the consensus seems to be that if the fracture is stable, they heal up really well. Heads, in general, seem to heal well. I think there is some concern over infection - as with any other surgery - but that's really about nursing as much as anything,

I knew a dressage horse that did something similar to yours - he pulled a chain tie through the front of his stable grill and then somehow got it caught around his jaw - and a good eventer that did it turned out so not sure of the cause. The dressage horse was quite young and healed up perfectly, not having any contact issues again. The event horse did seem to struggle a bit afterwards and jumped in a hackmore BUT he was a bit boomerang shaped anyway and never excelled in dressage so it's hard to tell if he would have been any better, but he certainly went back to eventing at Int+ level. Plus that was 20 years ago now so I'm assuming surgical techniques have progressed.
 
I have no experience with this, the only thing I do know is that bone generally heals alot stronger than before given the right care. Good luck, and I'll keep my fingers crossed and lots of healing vibes for poor Sam
 
Poor horse, that must have been a real shock to find.

Our TB x Trak mare has a hoof shaped indent on the side of her jaw/cheek which our EDT thinks may have been an old fracture from a kick. Doesn't affect her at all. As all the others have said head wounds are usually quick to heal as the head has such a good blood supply. The fact that it bled is good as the flowing blood would have helped to clean the wound.

I never cease to be amazed at the ways the horses find to injure themselves!
 
Horse won the Welsh National a few years back broke his jaw as a youngster and he never had any problems-I'm sure he'll be fine
 
My colt broke is jaw law year. He totally smashed his to the point that there was very little left on the front left corner. This was about 5 months ago now, and he has healed completely, though he only has 1 front tooth now! We had to clean around the gum guard over his wires twice a day while it was wired, which at first was utterly grim because it involved actually cleaning the bone and the raw flesh, but the flesh on the jaw healed really very quickly. We left taking the wires out for 3 months because when they came to check at 2 months the jaw hadn't set. But this was a seriously bad mess that he'd made, I don't think the vets thought it would heal, but it did.

Good luck with your boy, he should be fine.
 
mine had one where the fracture went from the throatlash right to where the bit lay. No indication other than he ran past a fence XC when in the lead at Mattingley on a 30 dr - that's how normal he was! Complely strange

I guess the only thing was that he dropped a lot of food

he then had his teeth checked by vet who thought it was a broken tooth, then decided to x ray and we realised he had this whopping great big fracture!

He is completely fine now, just has to be sedated for teeth rasping!
 
Thank you all. It's reassuring to hear some positive outcomes.

Sam is a bit brighter today and the swelling has gone down a little. He is eating better and loved the grated apple we took when we visited! He has been given some soaked hay today and managed it well. He is to have more x rays tomorrow to see how the fractures are looking and in the meantimme he is having his mouth flushed out regularly. He is on antibiotics and painkillers and is also starting on omeprazole as a precaution as obviously he is not eating normally yet. The wires appear to be holding well and my son was delighted with the alignment of his incisors as initially there was a large gap which was worrying him. Depending on the x ray results we may be able to bring him home later this week :D

The Weipers Centre have once again been amazing and an incident like this brings home just how lucky we are to have it close by.
 
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