Suspensory Ligament Desmitis

AandK

AandK

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i have read a lot about PSD on here but Andy has injured his suspensory ligament lower down where it branches on the inside of his fetlock.. current treatment is 3 lots of shockwave (2 weeks apart), course of Adequan (sp) and 3 months box rest with 10 mins walking for 1st month, 20 mins for second month and 30 mins for third month. at the end of third month he will be re-scanned to see how the ligament is doing.

has anyone got any experiences of injuries on the lower branch of the ligament.? did the horse return to full work incl jumping.?
thanks.!
 
Hav jus been posting myself about suspensory am coming back into work at the moment. My mare had tear on lateral branch and suspensoy is 100% now but she is suffering from puffy legs at the min which i am hopin is mostly due to her fitness levels, she is a ish heavy on the irish and has had ten months of just walking.
Hav had some reasurance here and heard of others that come back jumping fine.
my sympathies is tough to deal with but if it any consolation three months means its not a very bad tear.
 
Hi, my old mare had a branch come away from the seasamoid, was very very lame, like broke a leg lame, months of treatment followed, but she did not come even close to field sound and o was pts I am afraid.
 
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Hi, my old mare had a branch come away from the seasamoid, was very very lame, like broke a leg lame, months of treatment followed, but she did not come even close to field sound and o was pts I am afraid.

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I'm sorry that your horse had to be PTS, but I don't think posting this was very helpful or very sensitive. This poster must be very worried about her horse and it doesn't sound like it is a very bad case, but this type of reply can be very upsetting, when you automatically fear the worst for your horse.
 
OK, lets not panic..... I have a mare who did this and has come sound enough to hack and do stressage. Vet originally recommended not jumping but it was rescanned recently and is fine and he would in principle be happy for her to jump again. I'm unconvinced about the jumping bit though so I've decided not to go there!
 
Sorry popsicle but when people post for information they usually want every angle good and bad - I have a horse who made full recovery with the shockwave treatment rest and medicaiton but not everyone is that lucky. The truth is that when someone asks for information on here they do it because they know people will be honest. Julie H made a big point of saying how very lame her horse was in the first place as a comparison.
I have lost a horse to a collateral ligament injury and am also honest about this when people ask. It is not unhelpful it is honest, and the whole point of this forum is to help inform and support people in all circumstances. Every horse is different and IMO people just want a wide view not false hope.
Good luck AandK I hope your horse does well. Ours returned to full work including some jumping (but he was never that good anyway!).
 
Sorry to hear this K, poor Andy.
I think the likelihood is that with careful management he will come back to full work, whether you choose to carry on eventing him is probably too early to say, you'll need to see how well the ligament heals.
But even if he doesn't jump you will have a very smart stressage horse!
 
thanks for your replies people.
yes i am looking for the good and the bad.!! there always is with every injury/illness..
it sounds like JulieH's horse had a very serious injury if the ligament came away from the sesamoid bones. luckily for Andy he only has an acute injury, the vet did not say it was very bad just that ligaments take a long time to heal. he was 3/10 lame in trot and 1/10 (if that) in walk, the vet seems optimistic that as long as the ligament heals well enough he should be fine albeit he will be prone to re-injury as he has a weakness in that area.
i was just interested to hear about injuries to the lower branches as apposed to the higher ones.!
smile.gif
 
thanks N.!
as you know Andy is the 'comeback king' but yes, he will make a very smart stressage horse so that is nice to know. i even had a dressage lesson at the end of May (before he broke) first one for 3yr! so there may be hope for us yet..
will take it one step at a time wrt jumping, only time will tell. if we can event again it will only be the odd intro where the ground is v good.!
 
Sucess story:My bosses connie pony went unlevel. The first vet she called out told her to work him until he was lamer as they couldnt really see it. One month later he was lamer (no sh*t Sherlock!) so the vet told her it was probably arthritis and to keep working him. She wasnt happy so tried another vet who had a fit at the first vets advice, took him straight to the clinic for a full workup and the scan showed he had sustained a bone chip where the branch attaches so about half the branch was pulled off. He was kept in a very small paddock with his shetland friend, given 4 sessions of shockwave and 6 months later was back in work inc jumping. He has since passed a 5 stage vetting (they did declare the damage) and is still sound doing PC.
Sob story:My other experience was a 17hh ISH, seemed sound but looked short behind on the lunge and would sometimes hop a stride (like many Jack Rusells do). He had a full workup at the clinic and a huge hole was found where it passes through the hock. He had 6 shockwave treatments and was signed up for stem cell treatment and was improving when he was found one morning with colic, rushed to horsepital but despite their best efforts , died that evening. The colic was a result of long term box rest and if the horse hadnt been such a nutter hooning around even a tiny paddock or being impossible to walk in hand then we and the vet think he would have made it. The longterm prognosis was he would have been ok for hacking/showing and dressage.

Every case is different and you just have to take each day as it comes, there are many people with first hand experience on here- good and bad- but its reassuring to compare notes.

(((VIBES FOR ALL BROKEN HORSES)))
 
AandK

My little Arab mare (She is an endurance horse)did her suspensory ligament a few years ago made a full recovery and has competed in a number of endurance race rides since, winning one and being placed in three (Distances from 60 miles to 100 miles). She also goes x-country.

She was given the same as your horse apart from she hates to be kept in so I made a small corral in front of the stable so that she could move around and see my other horses.

Ultra sound is another thing that can be used.
 
I have a pony who did his suspensory - twice - hind leg- right at the top . You name it - he had the treatment- shockwave ; adequan injections etc. The most effective treatment I would say is 6 or 7 days a week work . If you want to start jumping agin - then he could cope with it - provided he jumped at least 3 days a week . The moment I stopped or altered the workload ( and therefore the amount of stretch on the ligement) - I found I needed to go back a couple of days work and re build it again . Exhausting I know - but it has kept him sound as a pound. ON a separate note - I have a horse just diagnosed with KS who is 19 . Does anyone know if the palliative route has actually worked ? The threads seem to suggest not ?
 
My lad had PSD although not to the extent of your pony luckily i realised very early on he was not right and he is now 15 nealry 5 years on from injury and he has been SJ and qualified for all kinds of championships.

I had to walk him [luckily for my safety i was allowed to ride him] for 10 mins then 20 and up by ten mins everyday.
So by this i can tell yours i obviously alot worse off as your workload is been updated monthly instead of daily like ours was.
TBH we were told to put him on box rest for 3 months but it only lasted 2 weeks as he was on the max ammount of acp and temprelax daily and he was still nuts even after 24 hours on box rest.
In the end i put him out during the day in a 20x20 lunging arena with some hay gor him to munch on.
Then i moved yards on the last day of his treatment and he stayed in for his wormer for intro to new yard and i wanted to be sure the last lot of shockwave had settled.And then i turned him out for the winter just left him to it,he was doing more harm than good been left in constantly stressing and spinning circles,in the field he knew his limits and was more settled.

I was concerned as vets did not give him good odd's even though it was caught early on, but i really beleive i did the rigfht thing by going by what he needed.Boxrest was possibly doing more harm than good so i took a risk and let him realise his own limits.
I dotn regret it for a second and my vets even said he made a very good recovery from the injury.


I truly beleive if you go by what your horse needs and take it as slow and carefully as you can your horse will come right,of course there are the unlucky few who dont tend to recover from this well especially when its lower down and harder to treat.
 
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