Recovering tendon injury!

[JoshuaR97]

Well at the end of this month (Feb) my horse will have done a compete month and two weeks of inland walking to were he is fully walking around 35 minutes. He is quite eager at times jogging home and what not. I'm thinking this weekend to trot him up to see his progress to then maybe think of adding some trot into his normal walks. By April time I'm hoping he should be going out every day for 1 hour walks. Do you think he will be ready to start trotting and build it up or should I keep him just walking? Trouble is I don't wanna push him since we've finally come this far.. And what other things should I be doing after his walks? Like cold hosing or anything? At the minute I'm not doing any of them as nothing seems to be going wrong.. fingers crossed! P.S needs to stay sound!

 

[KautoStar1]

I suppose it depends on the severity of the original injury and what your vet recommends. I walked in hand and then under saddle for about 5 months only introducing trot for a few yards at a time, building up to around month 8 when canter was introduced. Horse remained in his stable during this time and was only allowed turn out once canter work was re-established.

Did your vet give you anything like compagel to rub in to the affected area ?

Anything cold will help - spa therapy is the most effective but appreciate this is expensive and not easily accessible to all. Cold boots, ice vibe, bonnar bandage (if applied correctly) are all good things to have in your tack box.

But just keep walking for as long as possible would be the best advice I can give.

 

[Arniebear]

ditto the above poster

depends massivley on type of injury and length of time off

my lad damaged his SDFT had 2 months total box rest post surgery, 4 more months box rest with in hand walking/walker and then 3 months 24/7 field rest. when coming back into work he did 7 weeks walking before trot work, building the ridden walking up to 1.5 hours over the 7 weeks. He then did 6 weeks trot again building up over the 6 weeks before canter work and the same for canter before i relaxed and finally rode my horse without a stopwatch handy!!

This time round.... yes he injured another leg last season! Thankfully the original injury is holding up very well! He had 5 months field rest post surgery so we have been doing 5 weeks walk and are currently on week 2 of trot work.

As a rule of thumb its a week of 1 pace for each month they have had off.... 5 months off.... 5 weeks walking.... i would have walked him for longer if he had been box rested thou as he was on field turnout and therefore using the leg anyway i stuck to 5 weeks.

cold hose after anything really strenous, i cold hose when i up the length of trot work just in case. always check all the legs after work to see if there is any heat from the work, if there is then take a step back. sometimes they get heat when u begin to up the work as the leg isnt conditioned to the level of work cold hose and maybe decrease the work for a day or 2, but if in doubt phone the vet!

just take it as slow as u can, depends alot on what u want to do with them in the long run, this time round my boy will have 18 months off jumping in hope he stays sound, the first time he came back to event and broke mid season, he wont event again now but hopefully will do some dressage instead.

good luck!

 

[Birker2020]

Well at the end of this month (Feb) my horse will have done a compete month and two weeks of inland walking to were he is fully walking around 35 minutes. He is quite eager at times jogging home and what not. I'm thinking this weekend to trot him up to see his progress to then maybe think of adding some trot into his normal walks. By April time I'm hoping he should be going out every day for 1 hour walks. Do you think he will be ready to start trotting and build it up or should I keep him just walking? Trouble is I don't wanna push him since we've finally come this far.. And what other things should I be doing after his walks? Like cold hosing or anything? At the minute I'm not doing any of them as nothing seems to be going wrong.. fingers crossed! P.S needs to stay sound!

It depends on the nature of the injury, which tendon is injured. My horse has slightly sprained his suspensory branch, reading up on it, it is a very common injury, the human equivalent of going over on our ankle. Because its the branch and not the part running down the leg the injury is not so severe so the treatment time can be reduced somewhat. Ice is always the best thing for this type of injury and compression bandaging at night in the stable. I ice cupped every day for a month, he had LW ultrasound on his leg every other day, and has bioflow boots on at night (important not to use these when injury is acute).

OP Do you have any involvement with your physio? They may be able to advise you on exercises you can do at the stage he is at present.

Most horses would be on box rest for five weeks, but my horse cannot be on box rest for prolonged periods so is turned out for two hours a day in a small sandpit so he can walk round, stretch, and roll but hopefully not do too much damage. He has had a hoon around and a few really sharp spins, including jumping up a steep grass bank last weekend to avoid a rather nasty oil puddle on the road ..... seriously I wonder if he is all there at times but his leg has held out. He did the injury spinning sharply when he spooked at something at dressage, it had already been tweaked prior to this although we didn't know at the time but the vet afterwards said he thought that spin was the cause of the injury.

I started with four weeks walking ridden, then started trotting, first on the road uphill only, for about ten strides. I built up on this every day gradually introducing the school surface, trotting two long sides for two days, then four long sides for two days, and last week started with short sides.
I still use ice, but have the ice vibe boots which I use which are very effective. I put them on before working in the menage and then put the ice packs on underneath after riding. I think ice is very important, but it has to be applied carefully and isn't suitable for all injuries. if cold hosing is all you have then do use it after ridden exercise, a trickle for 20 mins is fine.

At the end of the day my vet has always said that the reason my horse comes back from injury as quickly as he does is due to all the hard work I put in at the time. Its not unknown for me to be sat on a stool ice cupping my horse three times a day, as well as cold tubbing, hosing and ice packs at repeated intervals. You only get back what you put in, so if you did a lot of cold treatment to start with then taht would have put you in good stead.

 

[Kathy657]

A lot depends on the type of injury. If there is a hole then you have to wait for the fibres to heal. The slower the rehabilitation, the better the fibres heal and the long term outcome is better.

 

[Kathy657]

I suppose it depends on the severity of the original injury and what your vet recommends. I walked in hand and then under saddle for about 5 months only introducing trot for a few yards at a time, building up to around month 8 when canter was introduced. Horse remained in his stable during this time and was only allowed turn out once canter work was re-established.

Did your vet give you anything like compagel to rub in to the affected area ?

Anything cold will help - spa therapy is the most effective but appreciate this is expensive and not easily accessible to all. Cold boots, ice vibe, bonnar bandage (if applied correctly) are all good things to have in your tack box.

But just keep walking for as long as possible would be the best advice I can give.

Totally agree, no turn out either until you are cantering.