Severed extensor tendon

Milkyway

Milkyway

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Hi, I'm new here but figured I may as we'll post!

My 10yo TB decided to run through a fence, degloving his cannon none, slicing his extensor tendon and the ligaments that surround it. He's been on box rest for the last 3.5months with a few Inhand walks. He knuckled over in the first week or so, but has been quite good since, he will do it if he's not concentrating.

We had a small surface infection around the 6 week mark, his stitches popped after nine days which was disappointing but not a lot we could do. He has been bandaged since it happened as he is a muppet. I'm not sure how to post pictures on here.

We had about 25% skin die off which we were quite lucky wasn't more. He is now on restricted turnout, he's feeling frisky but can't delay it forever. He has been a good patient, but the tendon was NOT stitched back together.

Has anyone dealt with similar and was your horse ever ridden again? Thanks! If I knew how to post pics I would. We are still healing the actual wound. He is having 2-3months to strengthen up in the paddock before he starts any form of physical work. :)
 
Hi and welcome :-)
Thought I'd bump for you as I've no experience of this injury but didn't want to read and run. Sounds like you've both had a horrible time and I just wanted to send good luck wishes.
Hopefully some people that have experienced similar will be along soon to share their stories.
 
I sound quite to-the-point in my original post but I'm really quite friendly!

It's been hard, but I'm great at bandage changes now!
 
Hello and welcome to the forum. There are plenty of people here who will have experience of this more first hand than me, but yes, I have known of a horse recover and go on to 1* eventing 2 years post trauma. He had gone walked across a hidden pile of pallets and went through and completely degloved a hind leg. He was at John McEwens Cross Country equine clinic for 9 months I think then managed back into work at 14 months if I remember correctly.

As for posting photo's...if you have a photobucket account, log in and click on your username, then in the drop down menu, click user settings. Click on the "albums" tab and scroll down. Make sure that the boxes ARE ticked for email & IM, direct link, HTML and IMG code, then check that the "link back to albums" box is UNTICKED.

Save those settings, then, when you upload a picture to your photobucket account, you can just click on the photo, then click the mouse in the IMG Code box to the right of the picture (it should copy automatically), then in your post on here, just click past or Ctrl V and it will copy the link in for you.
If when you click in the IMG Code box it does tell you it has copied, just hit Ctrl A, then Ctrl C and then click in your post on here and hot Ctrl V to copy.

It's actually really easy when you've done it once. If you don't have a photobucket account, you are welcome to send me a Private Message and I'll give you my email. If you email them to me, I can post them up for you :)

Hope he behaves himself on his restricted turnout xx
 
Can I put them in my album for people to see? I've figured out how to do that. Or is that too difficult?

He's had a good play, buck, rear, pig root and a small trot but no knuckling over! He's bandaged too, more for my piece of mind.
 
Milkyway said:
Can I put them in my album for people to see? I've figured out how to do that. Or is that too difficult?

He's had a good play, buck, rear, pig root and a small trot but no knuckling over! He's bandaged too, more for my piece of mind.
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If that's easier, go for it and just let people know that's where they can see them. Hopefully he doesn't overdo it, but it must be lovely to see him out again and having a bit of fun :)
 
hvatc6.jpg


Lets see if this works
 
I've known a horse sever the tendon without the degloving and it was fine after six months and never affected by it in spite of a terrible scar.
 
My friend was told that the extensor tendon is not of huge importance. I don't know how true that is but the mare went on to do some eventing. It was a hind leg.
 
It's impossible to believe that it healed so well, it's astonishing! Hopefully, he'll be fully sound, will you let us know? Good luck when he starts work.
 
Milkyway said:
Of course i will :) yea it was a good 3inches long up top when the skin dies and the inside has taken the longest
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It's incredible...there have been some amazing transformations on here, horse and human in recent years and I think threads like this are really important as case studies for others in the future wanting some reassurance when they find themselves in similar situations.

Well done so far and I hope he continues to recover well xx
 
I can't help in that my experience of a friend's horse with an almost identical injury is a few weeks behind yours. She severed the same tendon in the same leg as your horse by wrapping herself in a fence. Like your horse, they didn't stitch the tendon. She is currently still on box rest and has been for around 6 weeks. Initial prognosis was back in very light work at the end of August but she has fallen behind this schedule as the wound itself hasn't healed as well as the vets had initially hoped. The cut runs across her leg (i.e not vertically) so I think stitching it back together was a bit tricky. She is still bandaged and does go over on it sometimes. Long term, the vets are very optimistic for a full recovery. Apparently the vets had said to my friend that if this was going to happen, she had picked the best tendon to do it on!
 
Fun Times said:
I can't help in that my experience of a friend's horse with an almost identical injury is a few weeks behind yours. She severed the same tendon in the same leg as your horse by wrapping herself in a fence. Like your horse, they didn't stitch the tendon. She is currently still on box rest and has been for around 6 weeks. Initial prognosis was back in very light work at the end of August but she has fallen behind this schedule as the wound itself hasn't healed as well as the vets had initially hoped. The cut runs across her leg (i.e not vertically) so I think stitching it back together was a bit tricky. She is still bandaged and does go over on it sometimes. Long term, the vets are very optimistic for a full recovery. Apparently the vets had said to my friend that if this was going to happen, she had picked the best tendon to do it on!
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If she's still knuckling over, a tennis ball strapped to the back of her heel bulb will prevent her from going over too far, a fetlock ring is good too. Yep I keep thinking if he was going to do a tendon, this wasn't the worst :) if she'd like to contact me, I'll help anyway I can
 
One of our horses severed the Extensor Tendon on his near fore while on livery whilst we were on holiday three years ago. Sadly the owners saw fit not to call a vet and decided to just spray the wound with White vinegar! I don't think they realised how deep the wound was and assumed it was a scratch. Thankfully it was nowhere near as serious as your horses injury.

Three days after the injury we returned home to collect him and found a terrible mess and despite rushing him to the equine hospital they couldn't stitch anything including the skin because it had all dried up and shriveled back.

He was kept on box rest with twice daily bandage changes for two weeks but after he became a total nightmare he was turned on on a very small area 24/7. He has made an amazing physical recovery although he did have about 6 months off and then came back into work slowly. He relearned how to use the leg and after an initial spell of dragging his toe he has no loss of movement at all now.

However it definitely changed his behaviour and we have recently had to send him off to a pro yard for some re schooling as since the accident he became very, very fearful of everything and his default position is to bolt and in a blind panic, the hounds of hell are chasing me type way. I am totally convinced it was as a result of the accident and whatever happened to him that day.
 
Aww that's sad :( some people don't think, I admit I do have some dippy moments but nothing that would compromise his safety.

He spooked when the neighbours cut a tree down, he ran and his accident happened.

Milkys been amazing through most of his bandage changes. He got the odd smack but only because he would near stand on me :P
 
Milkyway said:
Hi, I'm new here but figured I may as we'll post!

My 10yo TB decided to run through a fence, degloving his cannon none, slicing his extensor tendon and the ligaments that surround it.

Has anyone dealt with similar and was your horse ever ridden again?
Click to expand...

Hi welcome to H&H forum.

My horse fell into a ditch on a fun ride years ago. There were bricks inside the banks of the ditch and once sliced through his fetlock from side to side. He has a veinous bleed which fortunately was stemmed to a degree by him having his hind boots left on although we used a tourniquet as it was still coming down in rivers down his leg. He had an emergency vet when we finally got him home (being August bank holiday no vets in the area were available).

We rang his vet on the way home and she met us there. he was on three legs the whole journey of an hour and 33 miles.

When she saw him she referred him the following day to an equine clinic. They'd never dealt with an injury like his and said his whole joint capsule had opened up and he'd severed two tendons, an extensor and a branch. But neither mattered in the long term as extensors weren't as important as flexors. They said he could go back to what he was doing before. Unfortunately after three ops under general anaethetic over three weeks the wound refused to heal and the plaster cast made him so sore that he was non weight bearing. After the third operation and flush out he appeared no better so they took the cast off in an standing stall and he flexed his leg and what little healing to the joint had taken place, he just ripped it all open so the decision was made to let him go.

So I never found out if he'd have been ok going back into work with the tendon or not but the vets obviously felt it was no deal breaker at the time.
 
Aww I'm sorry to hear that. We had a stage where we weren't sure if he'd have to be put down or not but he surprised us every time
 
Milkyway said:
If she's still knuckling over, a tennis ball strapped to the back of her heel bulb will prevent her from going over too far, a fetlock ring is good too. Yep I keep thinking if he was going to do a tendon, this wasn't the worst :) if she'd like to contact me, I'll help anyway I can
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Thanks very much milkyway, I will pass that on to her. She doesn't use HHO but I will act as "go between" (maybe for a small fee payable by her)! Do keep us updated with how your boy gets on.
 
My old mare did pretty much exactly the same!
6 months inside, with dressing changes etc, luckily never hand an infection and it finally healed beautifully. She was already retired, but was sound and galloping happily around the field after.
 
Hes just managed to spook himself at the snow lol. Ooh thats reassuring! I dont want to retire him
 
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I had a 2 year old sever this tendon. The cut wasn't very big, a horizontal gash on the near hind about half way up the cannon. Vet tried stitching it but it didn't hold, he was on box rest for six months approx and took it all in his stride (was stabled outside the back door so had plenty of entertainment!!!) Was only bandaged for a short time until the wound healed and had a swan neck shoe fitted which prevented him knuckling over. He recovered fully and was broken as a spring 4 year old and went to Switzerland to event and showjump with an amateur owner and has never had a problem. He competes regularly and is 16 now and has never been lame since the original accident. Again as others have said, my vet said if you were to sever a tendon the extensor one was a good one to do.
 
I'm going to go look up that shoe. He's barefoot so will have to see how he goes and if I can get that type of shoe! (NZ)
 
Your farrier can make it for you, ours did!!! Its an ordinary shoe with a piece of metal attached (welded or burned, not sure which) to the toe, the piece comes out (not sure how far your vet could advise I'm sure) and is bent back towards the hoof and bent back out again. Think of the shoe as the body of a swan and where the neck comes back to the body and then the way the head is attached. Sorry not very clear description, maybe someone else could describe it better but do you get the idea?
 
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