Knee Injury - suppliments

[LoriotDaudaie]

About two months ago whilst out on a hack my horse bolted with me for about 2 miles down the road, to cut a long story short the only thing left for me to do was to pull him into a hedge. He fell over and cut his knee open which then didn't heal very quickly. I followed advice from the vet and flushe the knee three times a day with saline and gave him antibiotics. The wound has healed now but as he is an eventer I am a little worried about him jarring his knee when working.
I was wondering if anyone could recommend any joint suppliments or anything to help prevent early arthritis and to help promote joint oil production. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Ella19]

Did he cut it and infect the joint then? I wouldn't be too worried about arthritis but if you are you are perfectly in your right to feed a joint suppliment. Having researched a few I would say Cosequin or Corta-vet are the best BUT they are very expensive! If he's not showing any problems yet and you want a preventitive for now I would put him on NAF superflex. It's what I put my youngster on as she was hunting hard and I wanted a preventitive. I get it at cost (£48) but it lasts me 180 days as I have a pony. If you want to try the liquid and powder to see if he'll eat it just contact them.

 

[glenruby]

I assume it was a "simple" skin wound then - by that I mean there werent any underlying structures affected.

The only joint supplements with scientific research which has been properly carried out are Newmarket Joint Supplemnt, Cosequin and Synequin. If you choose to use any of the cheaper alternatives, you may as well flush your monry down the toilet. NMJ is cheaper than the others and is recommended by the Equine orthopaedic surgeon we use (all 3 are but he says NMJ is more or less equal in effect to the other 2 despite being significantly cheaper).

 

[LoriotDaudaie]

He did cut the knee quite badly and the joint did get infected. The problem is I live in Guernsey in the Channel Islands and we don't have any equine specialist vets here so can get quite frustrating . It must have been quite a deep wound too as joint oil was leaking out of it for quite some time. He is an ex eventer and needs to be kept in full work to keep him sane and also stop him getting depressed.

Thanks for your advice.... Will look into the suppliments

 

[monstermunch]

I assume it was a "simple" skin wound then - by that I mean there werent any underlying structures affected.

The only joint supplements with scientific research which has been properly carried out are Newmarket Joint Supplemnt, Cosequin and Synequin. If you choose to use any of the cheaper alternatives, you may as well flush your monry down the toilet. NMJ is cheaper than the others and is recommended by the Equine orthopaedic surgeon we use (all 3 are but he says NMJ is more or less equal in effect to the other 2 despite being significantly cheaper).

This is a completely uneducated and narrow minded statement to make. Of course bigger companies have A LOT of expendable money to conduct their own scientific studies on their products. Very easy when your company turns over millions. The FACT is Glucosamine, MSM, and Chondroitin are all extensively independently proven to work for various joint problems. Therefore as long as you research all products, regardless of wether they are cheaper you WILL find alternatives that are very good quality, and work as well as if not better than the products you mention. The most important thing is the daily dose rate that you feed at. Being sucked into buying a leading brand purely because it is exactly that is what companies like Cosequin and NMJ rely on. After all it is easy for any company who has money behind them to prove their product works and to also have it backed by veterinary practices. Veterinary backing is not necessarily an indication on how good a product is. sometimes it is merely because of how much these institutions get paid to back a product. A sad but very true fact. Vets and surgeons are not god. They will not have access to all suppliments on the market and therefore will sometimes only promote what has been actively marketed to them or what they make most money from selling, unaware of other very good products that have been introduced to the market, with less marketing behind them.

So please do research all differrent products becasue there are cheaper extremely effective ones out there.

 

[katemiddleton]

Unfortunately, generally with joint supplements you do get what you pay for. Molecular weight and molecule length are vital for absorption and effectiveness, and the better ones do cost more, meaning the supplements they are in cost more. So they may say they contain the same thing, but the quality may vary drastically.

There's also a lot of new research in this area with new things coming out all the time (e.g. Boswellia - proven as a timp for MMP's, one of the most destructive things in a damanged joint!). So it's more than the usually heard of ingredients, and worth reading up on.