ligament damage and turning away to recover

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smellsofhorse

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After a kick my was diagnosed with a sequestrum, after 2 weeks box rest and baytril, the next x ray showed the bone bone healing well and the cut looked good.

However he is still a lot lamer that the vet would expect.
He is thinking there could be ligament damage.
So we have to wait another 2 weeks to another x ray and a scan if he is still lame.

The injury is just below the stifle joint, so i know there are 3 patella ligament in this area which could be injured.

Anyone else have experience with this injury?

From what the vet has said it could be alot of box rest and a long recovery period.

What about turning away?
Is this a good idea after the initial healing?
 
Not that I'm an expert but I would have thought the best thing with ligament damage is rest - lots of it. If you turn away then it will probably never heal. My lad had collateral ligament damage in his right fore and spent 3 months on box rest. Once the box rest is over then it is a long, slow process to bring the horse back into work. Turning out will risk undoing all the good work of resting him.
Good luck.
 
Its going to depend on what the vet finds on the xrays or scans. If its an injury that must have box rest then there is no choice, but if it would heal faster with box rest then turning away could well be an option. I would say he would need to be somewhere he can be with others that do not come in so that the herd is settled all the time. When they live out they don't usually run around a lot and will spend a lot of time just eating or strolling to the next bit of grass which is often a lot less stress on the ligament than turning in the stable and possibly getting frustrated and going round a lot when his friends go in and out. Can you give the horse extra time without thinking after half the time allowed for the healing oh he looks sound now and bringing him back into work?
 
If I turn him away I will give him plenty if time.
I won't rush it, I will give him extra time to be sure.

The scan is Thursday which will.be 5 weeks since the original injury so no chance of immobilising it!
 
blucanoo1990 said:
The injury is just below the stifle joint, so i know there are 3 patella ligament in this area which could be injured.

Anyone else have experience with this injury?

From what the vet has said it could be alot of box rest and a long recovery period.

What about turning away?
Is this a good idea after the initial healing?
Click to expand...

Hi. I'm not a vet so can only tell you my experience. My horse had exactly the same as what your horse had. When he was initially kicked the vet had to come out to stitch up the wound as it was quite big on the kick site. The vet said that it should heal nicely but there was a danger that the hoof (that kicked him) may have caught one of the ligaments. If this were the case and the ligament was damaged he would always have a problem with the movement of the limb. The problem wouldn't be massive but it would show as a momentary change to the limb through the limb stride (not explaining myself very well).

The vet told me to ride him and turn him out (just in walk and trot) as he was certain the injury wasn't significant and obviously didn't think that there was bone damage, just bone bruising which I'm guessing would have responded better to moving around than box rest. When I got him out of the field and rode him a day or two later he was lame in walk, (and terrible for the few short trot strides I did). The vet said that this was likely to happen but something told me not to continue with what the vet had as he seemed to be much lamer than would have been anticipated for such an insignificant injury, even walking in hand he was bad. And so I got the vet to come back out and xray. The horse had a bone chip. The vet said it was a good job he hadn't bombed around in his paddock or the chip may have turned into a catastrophic fracture and he had to stay on box rest with me painting the area once the skin had healed from the stitches with DMSO.

It was scary as I had previously lost a six year old to a compound fracture (possibly a stress fracture which had turned into a catastrophic fracture whilst playing in the field).

Don't really know what to advise with your horse, I'd just go with what the vet says. I know its a pain, especially if you end up going backwards and repeating all you have already done but it will be worth it in the end.
 
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