Severed extensor tendon in hind leg

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sarahn51

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Hi,

last monday my 5 year old mare severed her tendon in her hind leg. The vet was able to put it back together with surgery. She has not been lame on it at all. The vet believes that i should be able to ride her. she was a top in-hand horse as a youngster and I would like to do Dressage with her. Any thoughts on re-hab ideas to make her the best she can be? thanks
 
This only happened a week ago. Her 10 day check up is Thursday. we briefly talked about 8 weeks of stall rest then the hand walking, etc. she is a very smart mare and gets board easily so I have her at my friend's who started her. There are people in and out all day. Plus my friend rides 6 - 8 horses a day (she starts young horses) so she will not get board. Just want to do everything I can for her. I raised her from an embryo
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thanks
 
Hi, My mare did this 2 years ago.
She had a wound the size of a £5 note where she had caught her leg on wire and it scrapped down the leg. Once the flesh had been unravelled it showed she had severred her digital extensor and badly lacerated her superficial. It took a long time to heal, almost a year !, at first she knuckled over quite alot too.
I brought her back in very, very gradually, she is not as young as yours and also to avoid any complications.
Pole work also helped alot as she tended to drag her toe slightly - Good luck with your mare !
 
Thanks everyone. She did it on high tinsel wire. We don't have it but the neighbors do. three horses got loose at night. went over to the neighbors who have two horses and started to get to know each other with the squeeling and such. One horse a 21 year old mare got stuck in the wire and broke her leg in 5 places and unfortunately had to be put down. My horse severed her tendor and the 34 year old pony didn't have a scratch on him.

Thanks for everyone's input will let you know how it goes on thursday.
 
Where the accident happened was in Boonsboro, Maryland and she is now recovering in Lovettsville, Virginia.

I was thinking about hydro therapy. a vet i know near by has a hydro tread mill. I plan to talk to my vet about it. If he prescribes it it will be covered by my insurance.

Fortunately I have her insured.
 
Hi sarahn51 - don't know anything about this sort of injury although it sounds terrible. But I just had to reply coz you've raised your girl from an embryo! Loved it! Give her a hug from me and I wish her all the luck in the world with the healing.
 
[ QUOTE ]
Hi,

last monday my 5 year old mare severed her tendon in her hind leg. The vet was able to put it back together with surgery.

[/ QUOTE ]

Heavens - don't know how he did that! I had a yearling filly cut through to the bone on electric fencing and severed her extensor tendon completely. Vets at the specialist clinic we rushed her to said no chance of joining the severed ends - and they'd just pull apart again - they needed to grow back.

To facilitate that, she had a special shoe with extended toe fitted - and a steel brace which went up the front of the leg to keep the toe extended all the time. A massive dressing and padding on the leg - and then the brace was thoroughly wrapped to the outside of the bandaged leg.

This is how it looked several weeks afterwards - with the dressing off. You can see the padded steel brace.
ripple-unwrapped.jpg


And this is what it looked like with about £40 worth of dressing. padding, bandage on.

ripple-wrapped.jpg


She was on total box rest with the splint for about 10 weeks - then the splint was removed for a further couple of weeks box rest (still dressed.) Then she started in-hand walking - boy, was THAT fun with a yearling filly who'd been cooped up so long - took two of us to lead her and keep her contained.

However, it was worth it - she has made a full recovery and is 100% sound - although with a scar. Vets expect her to have NO problems in the future.

The most important initial rehab is rest - for the ligament to heel and strengthen - and then a slow return to exercise starting with in-hand walking, then ridden work - still in walk, and introduce trotting VERY slowly and carefully on good surface. Swimming or hydrotherapy certainly can't do any harm - and could help. But be guided always by your vet! Good Luck!
 
Hi,

sorry when I said he put it back together I ment that he could join the two ends but doubted that it would hold altogether. So yes it will need to heal and there will be a gap with some scaring but better than if there was a gap to begin with.

Also thanks for the info and pictures. Fortunately when it comes time for the hand walking she is 5 and has been lead in hand since she was a weanling. she showed as an in hand horse at rated Dressage Sport Horse Breed USDF shows since she was three months old. also she is very much like her mother pretty even tempered weither she is out or in a stall. However she is a horse.

thanks for the info and good wishes. We are going to the vet tomorrow to take a look and get the stiches out.

Sarah
 
Hi

We had our 10 day check and the vet said it looked better than he expected. Always good to hear. The staples are holding well and there is a small piece of skin that is still trying to decide if it wants to stay. She is still on KPen and bute but she is also still sound and in good spirits. I figured out how to attach a pic. The avatar is Rory at Devon at age 2. We go back next friday. Sarah
 
My friends 2 and 1/2 yr old has severed both extensor tendons in her hind near. The vets have managed to join the tendons back together. She has spent a month at the vets. They have used splints and casts to help keep the fetlock joint from knuckling over as best they could. They fitted her with a shoe earlier this week which has an extension off the toe which looks like a hook. This is to help her from knuckling the joint over as much although she still does which makes me cringe. The vets said she has to be walked out twice a day for at least 15 mins each time because her flexor tendon and ligaments need to be stretched out again. She has a very large wound where the wire had scrapped off most of the flesh down her cannon bone. Dressing the wound for my friend today was pretty awfull and then walking out the horse with my friend was pittyfull. I really could have cried. I have never seen anything like this before and tried not to let my friend know how I was feeling inside. I must confess although the vets are hopeful she will make a full recovery I was having serious doubts earlier today. Reading about other similar cases has made me feel so much better.
 
Sarah check out cold laser (infra red) treatment (google the research on tendon damage, it is well researched). You can buy a machine on eBay for £350 which may well be worth it in view of how much this is going to cost you in the end anyway. I am having HUGE success with it in aiding the recovery of a tendon injury above the knee in my hunter. If you know an electronic engineer, they can make you one with diodes off eBay for £30, PM me if you want my engineer to give yours instructions as to what you need to do to wire them up, it wasn't completely straightforward but not difficult.

Good luck with it, it's a tendon that they can manage well with damage to, a friend of mine had a filly do it and she was never unsound once it was healed, jumped and did dressage.
 
I remember my vet telling me about a horse that ripped open its extensor tendon where you could put your fingers through it, that horse competes
At International event level now, it made a full recovery :)
 
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