Meniscal damage

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ALO

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My horse has just been diagnosed with possible meniscal damage, (positive on stifle nerve block),probably secondary to hock spavin.has anyone had experiences with this kind of injury??he is about 2 tenths lame,vet said could only really ascertain actual damage by using arthroscopy,am reluctant to go down this route yet due to low level of lameness. He's being x rayed next week to rule out any bony involvement.
Thanks for all replies!
 
ALO, I have a horse which has recently eventually been diagnosed with a meniscal tear - after having had lots of other tests & being on box rest for 5 months.

If you & your vet think that this is the problem, I would recommend getting the arthroscopy done - if it is a tear, they can clean the area up, which will help with the healing process.

The BEST chance of mine coming right was to keep him on box rest, and give him controlled exercise to build up his muscles again - where he has been on box rest and not using that leg, his stifle area has totally wasted away.

I tried ridden walking exercise for almost 2 weeks, but even on Sedalin he was becoming uncontrollable and dangerous, so I wasn't happy about doing this - he was also in a lot of pain.

After discussions with my vet, he is now out in a paddock during the day and is walking fairly well on his leg. I am trying to be positive that he will come right, he does only a 50/50 chance of coming fully athletically sound again.
 
A friends horse has been diagnosed with this; as I understand it the prognosis for returning to competative jumping is very poor and even is unlikely to return to any ridden work. Her horse is only 3/10 lame but just a b***ger of an injury to get right.
 
Hmm,vet seems quite positive Im not so sure, have been suggested to medicate joint first,poss think about surgery if that doesn't work.How lame was your horse JennBaggs??Did u try medicating first?
 
Hi ALO,
It all depends on the severity of the damage. I had a welsh cob who threw herself over backwards in the trailer twice in 2 days. 1st time on way to riding club rally- my work doped her (equine hospital) and equine ambulance transported her back to work for obs as shocked and colicy. Next day she trotted up 3/10ths lame after flexion which mirrored the bruising and haematoma she had. Sedated her and put her back in equine ambulance for trip home where the bl**dy horse tried to do it again and ended up stuck tipped up against the back ramp struggling having snapped her ties. Got her out- all seemed fine.

Turned her out the next day ( couldnt box rest her- she was nuts and had to have friend present just to get in and tack up to ride) and at tea time got a call to say she was non weight bearing with profuse stifle effusion.

The result was no fractures on xray, reduced to 8/10ths lame after complete stifle block, visible on scan were large tears and disruption on both medial and lateral menisci. She was heavily sedated and slung off her feet to travel home to face 6mths box rest and 9mths barn rest to be hopefully paddock sound. After 2 weeks of having to be heavily sedated every day to cope with being on box rest alone I had her shot as it wasnt fair on her, she just couldnt cope at 25+ yrs old, on pm it turned out she had torn them almost the whole way through so no hope at all.

In hind sight I should have had her put to sleep the day she was xrayed.

I would go ahead with the arthroscopy as this will give you the best answers available and will tidy up the joint and give him the best chance. If you can sort it out before he does anymore damage he has a big chance of returning to normal work. Good luck, my mare was the worst end of the spectrum.
 
my mare has just returned from newmarket and has hotspots on her meniscus as well as upper hock. she is 3/10 lame . the vet did not advise arthroscopy but she is on box/small paddock rest ,aspirin and controlled exercise for 1 month to improve blood supply,and will be reviewed . the vet was more hopeful of full recovery if primary problem is her hock . i have no idea how this happened as appeared to come on at flatwork training.
 
you should definitely go ahead with the arthroscopy not just medicate the joint not knowing what is going on. They thought my horse had a meniscal injury but turns out he'd torn part of his cruciate ligament. Either way, one of the big parts of treatment is to clean up the torn bits and flush out the joint. Neither injury carries a good prognosis - roughly 50/50 for return to full work. My horse has just come back into work and did his first prelim yesterday. He went lame March 2010 and was only 1-2/10 lame but it didn't improve with a month's rest and vets said it wouldn't have got better with more rest. He needed the arthroscopy to clean everything up.
 
my cob had tears on both sides of his annular ligament and had an arthroscopy - 3 weeks down the line he is just starting controlled walking, with a view to ridden exercise in another 3 weeks. sound in walk and turning well. Arthroscopy definitely the correct decsion for us as he had very thick skin which meant ultrasound was patchy to say the least!
 
ALO said:
How lame was your horse JennBaggs??Did u try medicating first?
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I don't think there's any medication you can give for a torn ligament, but could be wrong. He had had a steroid injection after about a month as he was first diagnosed with a fractured hock. He was originally 6/10 lame in a straight line; and after 4 months of box rest was 1-2/10 lame in walk on a straight line (worse on the turn) and 4-5/10 lame at trot.

He's been out in his paddock for probably 3 weeks now, and was watching him this morning - still very lame, although I'm rubbish at knowing how many 10ths, just very lame :(

Flaxen - really sorry to hear your story, FWIW, it sounds like you made the right decision, and don't beat yourself up about not having her PTS sooner - at least you gave her a chance.

Star - is your boy fully sound now? Great that you've been able to get out on him.
 
cobwithattitude said:
my cob had tears on both sides of his annular ligament and had an arthroscopy - 3 weeks down the line he is just starting controlled walking, with a view to ridden exercise in another 3 weeks. sound in walk and turning well. Arthroscopy definitely the correct decsion for us as he had very thick skin which meant ultrasound was patchy to say the least!
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technically what your horse had is not arthroscopy and a very different problem to the meniscus which is a piece of cartilage in the stifle rather than a ligament. arthroscopy involves putting a camera into a joint. the annular ligament runs around the back of the fetlock but you dont need to go into the joint to examine it. normally it's tenoscopy which involves looking at the tendon sheath and the annular ligament. one of my other horses had this 5yrs ago.


Jenn - yes, he is sound now, back schooling again, hacking out as before, just gradually building up his canter work. Haven't asked any questions in the school yet. Will stick at prelim for a while before building up the collection and medium work again.
 
My pony had a small tear, he went to newmarket to have the op and is expected to make as full recovery, glad i put him through the op as i would have never known for certain what was going on otherwise

Good luck with what you decide to do
 
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