suspensory ligament injury. Help please.

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gable

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My horse has a suspected suspensory ligament injury.
He is going in for scans and nerve blocks on Monday.

Can anyone tell me about their experiences of this.

Recovery time, treatment, did your horse return to full work?

Thanks
 
Sorry to hear this :(.
My pony did her tendon 2 years ago. Was around a year to recover (well longer as she broken her pedal bone too, long story).
She had ultrasound treatment by the physio and apart from that just box rest with 10 minute inhand walks everyday. She was allowed back into a small flat paddock after 5 months of rest, and then it was another 3 months before I started light hacks. She was back in full work after a year and is actually better than ever! She has been jumping out of her skin and our first BS show is this weekend.
My advice would be prepare yourself for a lot of box rest, we gave Daisy turnips to play with every day (must have spent a fortune on them!) and take everything very slowly. You need to really look after their feet, Daisy got awful thrush from being in a box all the time, so wax/grease (ask your vet)every day.
Now that she is back in work I am really careful about what ground I ride on. She will never do xc again as it is just too much stress on the tendon. I don't jump too often, only in lessons and at shows really.
Good luck, hope your prognosis isn't too bad, sending vibes :)
 
I've had 3 racehorses off the track all with suspensory injuries and all 3 went into a pretty decent level of work, sadly one was PTS for other reasons but one boy (he'd done ddft on the other leg too!)M is out show jumping most weekends and the other does a mixture of dressage, combined training and a few ode here and there.
It helps to treat it aggressively at the start, I did cold boots for 30mins at a time 3 or 4 times per day and magnetic boots for a few hours morning and evening.
MSM is also helpful for rebuilding soft tissue. Lots of racehorses have leg injuries and go back into training afterwards, with good care the prognosis can be pretty good. :-)
 
My big horse has done both his hind proximal suspensories. The prognosis will depend entirely on the severity of the lesions to the ligament. Shockwave treatment is common. My boy had two periods of 6 months and 7 months box rest with restricted exercise - walking for up to an hour a day. He had a nervectomy to both ligaments but unfortunately he will never be sound and now only gently hacks.

However - his ligaments are badly damaged. As other people have said - their horses have come back from this injury well. The scans will be the telling point. I really keep my fingers crossed for you.
 
Suspensories are really easy to fix. Depending on how much damage there is. You should only need a scan and not a nerve block if it shows up as the suspensories.

Working in racing I have seen loads of these. We cold hose for 15mins a time 6 times a day for the first week. After that it is 2months box rest with a big stookie on followed by a month of gradual walking and then turnout for another 2 months. Most of ours only get the turn out time because by the time we would get them fit to race again their sort of racing ground will have gone and they would normally be on their holidays anyway.

Suspensories are much, much easier to fix than tendons and most horses go on to race for years afterwards and never have another bother with them. If horses can gallop round 3miles of chase fences in mud then a normal horse with a normal workload will be fine. It most certainly isn't the end of the world and Time is your best friend with these sort of things.
 
My ex has just won 2 p2p's with a horse that did a foreleg suspensory the season before, my 4 year old did one in training as a rising 3 year old. Many horses make a full return to work.

Good luck with yours!
 
My mare damaged a suspensory branch last March. at the time it was treated with shockwave therapy, lots of cold hosing, ice packs and three months of box rest. Then we built up to walking out in hand, and eventual turnout into a teeny paddock. Unfortunately, she re-injured it in November and we went back to square one. 3 MORE months box rest, more hand walking etc, only this time, the vet used PRP treatment to fill in the hole in the damaged ligament. This means they take a sample of blood from the horse and filter it to remove the bits that are the clotting agent, they then inject this using ultrasound scanning into the core lesion. We had this treatment in february and although she is not sound yet, the swelling is greatly reduced. Prognosis for my mare is that she will hopefully come sound enough to do some light hacking, but its a no no for jumping. Good luck!
 
As a rule of thumb, I give them three times the amount of rest from the time the injury started, to the time no symptoms were evident. Usually most will heal and as long as they are kept off hard ground, will be fine, there can be complications (personally, I have medial collateral just now, and I think it will need an op as there is always pain, indicating some aggravation at the site of attachment to the bone)
 
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My horse did his suspensory a year ago. He was on box rest for 3 months, and never allowed to jump again but did come sound. He was on loan though and i wanted a show jumper so unfortunatley he had to move to a new home but i hear hes doing fine and very happy :) He was 13. I was told by the vet that age is important as an older horse will struggle to ever fully recover. Theres a horse on my yard that did his suspensory and about 3 months later hes out hacking again, though only very steady and isnt doing heavy work at all. I think it will take a while but doesnt mean "lawn mower" just yet :)

Good luck!!!
 
Fingers crossed for monday then. Hopefully its nothing too serious and he can return to full work eventually
 
My horse tore his front suspensory a few years ago. He was put on box rest and had shockwave treatment and stem cell therapy. When we started hand-walking him he was still lame. Turns out he had strained the other suspensory. After about a year he was perfectly sound and has been fine ever since. We've stopped jumping him as he's injured both suspensories, and to be honest Mum doesn't jump and I'm away at uni for most of the year so...but he's been a great little dressage horse ever since! Good luck OP, your horse should be fine with the poper treatment!
 
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