gutted gutted gutted (very sorry for myself, I apologise!!)

georgiegirl

georgiegirl

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As title! And I apologise to anyone who as been on the recieving end of my foul mood/sadness for the past two days.

anyway the story goes as follows.......

twig my 6yo tb came in two weeks ago, very very mild lameness in near fore. at first we thought initially she had done something to her shoulder. To be on the safe side we took her out of work and got farrier to look at her foot just in case. he found nothing in te way of pus or anything but fitted a pad just in case she had bruised her sole. after a few days there was no improvement so we have gone down the vet route.

Turns out she has done the upper part of her suspensory ligament. Ultrasound also sowed fluid around the check ligament too. The treatment plan so far is box rest for 6 weeks (which with a 6yo ex racer who is slightly neurotic im dreading!!) adequan injections IM every 4 days and bute for 17 days as well as applying tensolvet?? 5 times a day.

Words cannot express how gutted I am for her. This horse took me to hell and back and the whole time I have stuck with her when others have told me to give up. She has come on so far, winning dressage and sj and was all ready to event this year. I know much worse things can happen and i should be grateful of that but right now its hard :-(

So, I would like to know other peoples experiences/advice or tips of other things i can be doing to help her. I did mention shockwave treatment to te vet but she says where the ligament is so high up it doesnt respond so well as its so deep.

And the major question...........is it unrealistic to expect this horse to ever event in the future?? Im devastated for her. Not only is this potentially career ending shes also holed up in her box for a good part of the summer. Life just seems so cruel sometimes
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Oh poor you, what i nightmare! Thought my old fella's story might help you see a light at the end of the 'suspensory ligament tunnel'.. our old hunter had an injury that sounds similar to your mare's. He went on box rest, had adequan injestion etc etc all that painful faffing around and what not, and although he was bored and regularly staged houdini esq escape attempts he came right and hunted 4 more seasons dispite the vet's first diagnosis that he would only be suitable as a hack after treatment!!
Moral of the story i guess is to keep your chin up and your stable doors securely locked! I really hope your mare comes right.
 
If you're insured I'd push for shockwave treatment as it certainly won't do any harm and may do some good even if it limited. We used it on my TBs collateral ligament damage despite it not being proven, he is now sound on the injured leg, who knows whether the shockwave helped but I'm glad I tried.
Don't give up hope. Suspensories can and do heal just give your mare plenty of time.
 
I mentioned shockwave to the vet (i know very little about it but had read it can be used) and she said we'll decide on on tat after te 6 week scan - her reasoning is sockwave is less affective at high suspensory injuries as it can penetrate deep enough and the trauma of boxing up to the vets (twig is a total stress head) may do more harm than good
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Thankyou for your story its made me feel better - I've also had a good cry about it too, I know I'm being pathetic but I felt sorry for her being holed up in her box all that time!

I did have a pony years ago as a child who did her suspensory at the branch (which is apparently much worse??) she was 20 and after that she went on to unt and do prince phillip cup so I just keep reminding myself! Bearing in mind tis was years ago and its much different now!

Just tough when the 'nutter' is finally turning into a very beautiful competition horse at 6yo!
 
My horse did 3 suspensorys so I know what your going through. He also was not good for being locked up in a stable 24/7. He did become dangerous for it and in the end I just turned him out because he was doing more damage in the stable then out in the field.
Your girl is still quite young so i'm sure with plenty of time off and hopefully she will fix.
My mum works for a vets and she has heard many cases of horses going back to full time competiting after doing a suspensory. Finger crossed for you that it heals.
 
My 14 YO ISH is still trying to return to work after putting a vertical hole in his suspensary, but we ahve tried a few things that may help you,
--> shockwave is good i think
--> hydrotherapy spas, that is something that has been reccomended and am thinking of trying it
--> stem cell?
--> and this sounds silly but it really helped my boy, we have a healer lady near to use, she is affiliated with some organisation she is brilliant! and genuine, she is not a barn pot like some of time.
I am as sceptical as they come, my mum asked me to try it and i have to eat my hat when i say it works, it really helps the healing process, if you want me to get you here officail occupation give us a shout.

The depression of it all comes in waves, jsut take every day as it comes, i was shattered when it happened to my boy, we were aiming for Junior teams and all that was shattered! you will get through it, even if your vet is not, be open to ideas because our vet was really open to things and researched options for us out of hours! its better to do 9 differnet things that work 10% than one that is only 40% effective. I hope it all goes well, it could get expensive but that is the wonder of insurance!
 
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I really feel for you; I went through PSD with my pony, but it was hind leg and he was operated on, successfully
smile.gif
I did turn him out after 4 weeks of box rest as he doesn't do stables very well, and field rested him for 6 months.

Hope all goes well; ((((hugs)))))
 
I'm sorry about your vets view on shockwave. We were lucky in that ours have a portable machine so it was done at home. Like some of the rest we opted for minimal box rest and instead turned him away for six months as he was only 5yrs old and not coping with box rest.
Her age is on your side, my vet believes the younger they are the better chance of it healing.
 
Have you thought about physio options too? Some insurance companies will pay some towards it if she is insured and they will combine all the therapies they have to hand.

As someone else said, any other therapy certainly wont do any harm (even if it does nothing) and you do have to make a decision preserve their mental health in all of this. I know that there is a new train of thought in the racing world for treating damaged tendons and they walk them for the first 6 weeks of the injury to encourage correct cell repair to try an avoid the creation of inelastic scar tissue. I am not sure how this would relate to ligaments.

My mare tore a hole in her ddft and I would definatley recommend contacting a physio and just being very, very patient. A couple of months extra on top of the recovery time is preferable than bringing them back in to work too soon and risking further damage. It is definately not the end of the road and my mare made a full (jumping) recovery from the injury the vet said would render her unrideable and you wouldn't know there was a damaged tendon there now. I gave her a full year off and I was lucky that she is very quiet so she had about 4months box rest but was walked every day in hand morning and night gradually increasing to an hour a day from the min she came back from the pysio. In hind site I would've put her out sooner on restricted grazing had I have been able to see the improvement made by it in advance!

Supplements and herbal additives are also worth investigating to encourage cell repair and circulation as tendons and ligaments heal badly due to their poor blood supply.

My YO (a very experienced hunt master) always says that if a year in a field wont fix it nothing will and in my experience I am inclined to agree.

It would be bad enough to be left with a broken horse but to be left with a mentally and physically broken horse is worse (believe me I made this mistake years ago and to make matters worse the injury healed within a matter or weeks when I eventually turned this horse out). I know it isn't much comfort but she is a mare so there is always a use for her and you definately have her age on your side.
 
I have just been given the all clear to start a bit more work with my boy.

He was diagnosed with hindlimb PSD 11 weeks ago. My vet scanned this morning and said that the ligament now looks better than the other one!! We followed a treatment programme using controlled exercise on the horsealker (starting at 2 x 30mins a day), Regular spa treatments and daily turnout (now out overnight).

We have also been treating a horse with a core lesion in a front tendon, can't remember exact details right now, he has been following a regime for a year which has not been working due to the horse reinjuring himself regularly in the field. He has now been doing the same controlled exercise (horsewalking) and spa as my PSD horse for the last 7 weeks and the vet has scanned him today and said he needs to start ridden work and be cantering in a month.

Regular spa sessions can help to first of all reduce any swelling/filling around the tendons/ligaments. It also stimulates blood flow and helps to treat the other legs at the same time (reducing any strain that may be caused by compensation).

On a positive note front suspensories tend to heal better than hind suspensories.
 
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