Hind splint fracture/surgery..Experiences?

[sprite1978]

My 5 yo gelding has agrevated, what we believe to be an old fracture of a hind splint bone. I`ll find out tommorrow if he needs surgery to remove the excess bone. The boney lump maybe pressing on the tendon.

Has anyone got any experience of splint bone fracture surgery? Recovery time, future prognosis, and last but not least.......COST!

 

[sprite1978]

bump

 

[rhino]

Not much help, but my boy very nearly needed surgery after a kick to his back leg which fractured his lateral splint bone about 1/3 of the way down. The biggest issue we had was that the wound itself was very hard to treat and we had to work our way through quite a few different antibiotics. There was one bone chip but it worked itself out through the wound.

I was warned that if he had surgery he would have been an inpatient for about 10 days to allow the drain to be flushed through regularly (this was to be at Glasgow vet school). I'm not sure as to the costs as he was insured. As it was we decided not to operate and treat conservatively, with box rest and then gradually increasing work. He was back in full work in about 4 months. A large 'false' splint did form with the bone remodelling but he is not a show horse and it did not affect his movement in any way. This was over 10 years ago and my horse shows no ill effects of the injury.

I also know of a very well bred 4yo wb who had his entire splint bone removed surgically. He was hospitalised for 2 weeks and then box rest for a further 8 weeks. He did return to work and seemed to be going well although he unfortunately had to be pts with an unrelated condidtion before he was fully recovered.

Hope you have a successful outcome