PRP treatment.

[5bs]

My five year old cob has been at Cambridge for a week for lameness investigations, he has had his first of two PRP treatments followed by one steroid, this has been done in the sacroiliac. The vet said it is going to be a long road. Anyone else's horse had this with a horse that was very lame, this is a long standing trauma injury, that he would of had when I bought him in May, it is now showing arthritic changes in the joint as well.

Eight weeks box rest, followed by in hand walking etc etc.
He only went lame two weeks. He was 3/5 lame, and then went 4/5lame after flexion and they had to stop as it was pitiful to watch. He has responded well to box rest so far, but I do wonder if a weakness like this can ever recover?

I no he has age on his side, but for this to have happened to a horse so young is a little worrying, he is a 15.1 maxi cob, and the vet said it is an injury usually seen in the more athletic types.

Thanks for any replys.

 

[floradora09]

Sorry to hear about your boy, all I can add is that mine had PRP treatment (just 1 lot, didn't know they sometimes do it more than once) in his proximal suspensory branch, and so far he seems to have responded well. He did trot up sound for the vet 2 weeks after. Good luck with yours

 

[pigpony]

Mine had this last year at 20, he was at his worst 6/10ths lame, he had various things wrong with one of his front legs. Basically ruined it playing in the field. When we took him back the vets were shocked at his progress they really didn't expect him to be sound, we were doing it to make him comfortable and retire him essentially. However he's able to hack, and do light schooling. We haven't pushed him to do more as we felt he deserved semi retirement, he owes me nothing.

Saying that the hounds passed his field last weekend, which resulted in him giving his leg a good testing, and he came in sound

Yours has age on his side, whereas mine didn't ...so hopefully you will also have a positive outcome. I would use PRP again if required after the results I've had.

 

[Birker2020]

Yes my horse had this treatment September 2010 after injuring his lateral branch of his suspensory ligament possibly from galloping in deep footing in the menage when he bolted with me in the June of 2010. He was 14 at the time.

He had three lots of shockwave, some deep long wave ultrasound and some magnetic therapy prior to the PRP. He was in and out of the clinic in about an hour and a half to have the PRP treatment (took a bit for the prep beforehand and the sedation to wear off afterward the procedure).

Blood was taken from the neck and put in a kind of drip bag system with one of the chambers off the drip bag collecting the protein rich plasma (PRP) which was then injected back into the ligament.

Following the injury my horse was hoppy on the opposite leg and gradually became worse so eventually he was about 3/10ths lame at his worse. In the March of 2011 he started jumping and then the following month went competing and has jumped 2ft9/3ft/3ft3 without any problems. I am delighted with the progress.

The vet that originally treated him came out the other day for his flu jab and said that although the leg had thickening (which he was suprised about) it was also more defined in other areas (which before it hadn't been) and he seemed happy with its progress.

Bailey was on box rest for a week following the PRP and then light exercise the following week, by week three was cantering for short periods and by week four was back to normal with his exercise. I did an awful lot of hacking (walk only) to build him back up, and it helped that it was the spring/summer so I could hack out after work in the evenings. The vet came back every month to rescan and three times there was no progress and it all looked very disheartening and worrying, and then overnight it started to heal and we never looked back.

The vet said there was a 40% chance of the injury reoccuring and if it did we would have to do the box rest, and bringing back into work again.

He said he didn't know if he'd ever be able to jump again which made life very hard for a while as all I want to do is jump. But I started in about the May 2011 and he has been jumping fab, we were out from May - October every weekend without fail and he was being placed nearly every time. He also had his hocks fused in the March with ethanol and this helped with the overloading onto the n/f suspensory injury from the off hind hock problem.

I wish you well with your horse.