Patella injuries!!

[Caritas]

Just to cut a long story short, my horse came in from the field about 10 weeks ago and could hardly put his hind leg to the ground, when he did it was toe first and very very painful. after many scans and xrays, no problem was really found, horse couldnt be nerve blocked due to nervousness. Vet never ruled out a fracture but wasnt ever really 100% sure where the pain was coming from. After 6 weeks box rest he came sound and was very slowly, brought back into work. Now a month on he is doing well and being turned out accasionally on sedalin, due to worry of reinjuring himself. I went back to the vets and unfortuanately on trot up he was sound but had a slight oddness to the hindlimb gait, he almost hitched it up at the patella, as the vet put it. If you shut your eyes and heard him trot, he sounded completely ok, what are peoples views?? Do we think it is early days and it will improve or do you think that there could always be a slight oddness to the gait now? Has anyone ever had experience of this and what was the initial injury?? I have been advised to carry on working him and to increase the lateral work, the horse seems to be doing fine. I think my biggest concern is that we never got to the bottom of what the injury was!!

 

[jenh166]

Hate to put a spanner in the works but they could be two totally unrelated injuries! What did vet find on palpation? And did vet use hoof testers?

 

[millimoo]

I'd suggest an MRI scan with a specialist.....
We had a youngster diagnosed due to ongoing low grade lameness.
The results showed an old tendon injury in his foot, (unlike yours, the vet thought was years old), which had de-stabilised the joint so much that the joint was breaking down - the foot had begun to contract slightly prior to diagnosis.
I'm sure your horse is ok, and it's not cheap, but it would resolve your concerns quickly. We saved months of box rest / field rest by going down this route - oh and his x-rays were still clear.
I'm sure the lateral work will help muscle him up and improve the stability of his stifle joint, improving the gait.