PSD surgery - recovery time?

cptrayes

cptrayes

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I have a friend who is being recommended surgery for her horse on a Proximal Suspensory Desmitis in one hind leg. Does anyone know what the recovery is like from this operation? What it involved and how long for?

And the liklihood of the other leg developing the same problem - he is only lame on one but both showed markers on a scintigraph?

Last question, promise :), does anyone know what % of horses who have the op return to a good level of work, say Riding Club SJ and DR and hacking??

Thanks for any help that you can give.
 
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Hi Santa paws. I have just had this conversation with the vets the other week. It's 4-6 weeks total box rest then a walking program will be 3-4 months before the horse will be back schooling if all gos well. It is likely the other hind leg will develop psd as well. But providing everything else gos ok and the horse has no other problems its normally 70-80% of horses come back to the same level of work as previously. Hope this helps
 
Santa Paws said:
I have a friend who is being recommended surgery for her horse on a Proximal Suspensory Desmitis in one hind leg. Does anyone know what the recovery is like from this operation? What it involved and how long for?

And the liklihood of the other leg developing the same problem - he is only lame on one but both showed markers on a scintigraph?

Last question, promise :), does anyone know what % of horses who have the op return to a good level of work, say Riding Club SJ and DR and hacking??

Thanks for any help that you can give.
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yep, had 2 horses go through it! see little MJ's thread for more on the story. as always, recovery depends on the horse - but i'm very anti box rest and i was very frank with the vets beforehand that my horses would only be in for the absolute shortest time possible but i was then happy to turn them away for 6 months field rest if necessary. ideally its 4-6 weeks box rest with grazing/leg stretching in hand and then build up work afterwards. they normally say 6 months before back in full work, although this depends on the level of the injury pre-op eg my second horse to have the op - his ligament had healed but the vets felt there was residual nerve damage. in his case the vets advised 6 weeks box rest with walking and grazing in hand, and then they were happy for me to do a normal 8 week fittening regime (unfortunately due to front foot lameness we never got to that fittening stage and he's now at rockley)

they say around a 70% return to full work - but they are v few/if any longterm studies and that 70% is mostly only after 6 mo to 1 year. i'm not sure about how many horses make it more long-term than that.

please do pm me if i can give any more support/advice :)
 
oh, ps, just because they have had it in one leg doesn't mean they will get it in the other leg. i guess it partly depends if its a genetic weekness or a specific injury. interestingly, bristol uni op'd on my first boy and they only did the lame leg, but o'gorman's who did my second horse operate on both automatically (buy one get one free was how they sold it to me! lol! but also helps with the insurance if the second one was to go later!)
 
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