Superficial Digital Flexor Tendon - advice

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Lexie01

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Our elderly retired pony has been diagnosed with a tear in her SDFT on her forelimb. She is 24 this year. I have been told that she will require box rest for 6 months with possibly spells outside in a stable sized fenced area. My gut instinct is to call it a day - as heartbreaking as that is. But I just wondered if anyone had any positive stories about recovery in older horses. I guess I'm just clutching at straws.
 
6 months sounds excessive but maybe it's a catastrophic tear, I would try to have a frank talk with the vet. As I understand it - it is called superficial for a reason. I do know of a horse who lost a lot of his sdft and seemed happy as a field ornament for a few years, he was younger though.
 
Talk your vet frankly about the recovery process. If she's retired, not ridden she may well come field sound quickly enough it's not really a problem.

One of our veteran ponies had a fight with his turnout rug and strained all the tendons down both hind legs. Totally buggered himself up, career ending, thought he'd never settle down enough to heal even to be field sound and thought we'd have to say goodbye. Couldn't boxrest him as he'd throw a huge wobbler and give himself ulcers, so just field rested him and hoped. 4 years later he's back in ridden work. Much longer recovery than if he'd been a young horse and properly rested but he still came round in the end.

Does your pony hooly around in the field or is she a calm plodder? Talk to the vet about whether a shorter period of box rest to start off healing followed by calm turnout would be an option for her.
 
FitzyFitz said:
Talk your vet frankly about the recovery process. If she's retired, not ridden she may well come field sound quickly enough it's not really a problem.

One of our veteran ponies had a fight with his turnout rug and strained all the tendons down both hind legs. Totally buggered himself up, career ending, thought he'd never settle down enough to heal even to be field sound and thought we'd have to say goodbye. Couldn't boxrest him as he'd throw a huge wobbler and give himself ulcers, so just field rested him and hoped. 4 years later he's back in ridden work. Much longer recovery than if he'd been a young horse and properly rested but he still came round in the end.

Does your pony hooly around in the field or is she a calm plodder? Talk to the vet about whether a shorter period of box rest to start off healing followed by calm turnout would be an option for her.
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Thank you. TBH I was too upset today to have a proper discussion with the vet. All I heard was 6 months of box rest! She is ok on box rest - its just that I don't want her stuck inside for 6 months at the age of 24. A shorter spell on box rest plus limited turnout would be a better prospect. She is completely retired so only needs to one field sound and free of pain.
Do you know if there is greater risk of re injury?
 
I’m afraid I was a bit young to have taken onboard if it was DDFT or SDFT and exactly what we did but my childhood pony ‘bowed a tendon’ aged around 25. I know we iced a lot, rested in a small paddock (luckily she wasn’t really one for running around for no reason) and I remember having it bandaged, but it was a long time ago so that might not be best practice anymore. Long story short, she lived to be 39, learned half pass aged 30 and only stopped ridden work at around 31 and switched to hacking in hand. We were just very careful with her.

My latest story won’t be any help as it was SDFT in hindlimb in a very young horse, but it was an 80% rupture. Non weight baring following the injury. After a week in hospital to make sure it didn’t go septic, he came back and was in a stable with stable sized outside space as well. 4ish weeks of that then I moved him to a big double field shelter with same sized outside space for another 4-6 weeks. Then gradually gave him more space but on hard standing area to reduce the motivation to do bouncing. After 6 months he was back to cantering around the field, leaping on and off things.
 
My pony did that injury at 19. It is not 6 months full box rest. It is box rest and controlled exercise so he started with 5 minutes walking in hand twice a day and then building it up till he was walking for an hour twice a day then started trot and then once he was trotting 10 minutes he was allowed in small paddock turnout sedated to start off with and then gradually building up to canter again.

It is a long stretch of rehab. He came sound then I lost him to a gastric impaction just before he was due to start herd turnout again.

Question for vet might be what would happen if you did not box rest him but just did small paddock turnout.
 
6 months box rest is old school and what they mean is 3 months in a box solid, 3 months gradual walking before turnout.

The new fangled method we use in racing is (obviously depending on the size of the hole) 3-4 weeks box rest, gradual quiet walking out from the end of week 3-4 for another 3-4 weeks, keep walking whilst turnout in a small paddock they can't hooley around in. Around the end of month 4 of this we turn them out completely 24/7 with their buddies and forget about them. It will still be a year from injury to race track but it has been proven that the injuries heal better when you introduce quiet walking earlier on as it will bring blood to the affected area and blood flow increases healing.

I brought an 18yo tb through a second hind limb sdft tear that went round his fetlock. He came out the other end absolutely fine and I lost him 3 years later to something totally unrelated.

Of course an older horse is not going to heal as well as a younger one but it is possible.
 
I'm not convinced box rest is the right thing especially with an older horse, my Arabi was 18 last year and he fractured his pedal bone and had about 14 weeks box rest in a cast, it totally seized him up he was literally like a plank of wood and I had a feeling other things were going on.

He had a full work up and they found slight damage to suspensory behind and mild hock arthritis it was all treated, they wanted him on 6 months box rest and tbh I didn't do it he had laser on the suspensories for 3 weeks twice a week, it was in the summer and I just left him on full turnout.

He did come sound but he was only very slightly lame to begin with and I just think the toll it takes on his body just wasn't worth it, he had to have months of physio to get him mobile again after everything.

I suppose it depends how lame she is and if she will be comfortable mooching in the field and if it will recover enough for her to be field sound, but I do have reservations of putting older retired horses through months of box rest.

I would have a good chat with your vet about how you feel and go from there but I do feel some vets are very much in favour of box rest.
 
In a horse which is already retired, of that age, I would have no hesitation in PTS.

The question for me is, retired, how did that injury happen, and when she has recovered from this one, what will the next one be?
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Mine was 18 when he did that. He was still in light work, so i did rest him for three months and then started walking rehab. He was all ready to go back to light hacking when he was found to have a severe heart murmer so I retired him completely then. He got lucky i guess, he recovered enough from his injury on the box rest to have several years of enjoyable life on grass since.
 
Hi everyone, thank you all for your helpful comments. Sorry for not replying sooner. I have spoken to the vets and she confirmed that it would be 3 months strict box rest followed by a review and possibly small stable sized restricted turnout for the next few months. It is a bad tear. Given the fact that the pony in question was a competition pony full of beans - never walked when a trot/canter would do - I think she would struggle with this.
We have made the heartbreaking decision to PTS - although I haven't made the call to the vets yet - such a difficult conversation to have xx
 
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