suspensory nightmare

[iduck]

I have a wonderful old welsh pony who I am extremely attached to. he fractured his splint and for some reason, although he has been improving all the time, he is still lame 9 months on. The break is healed but he did damage to his suspensory ligament too. he has chronic swelling in his left fore.
My problem is, it has been such a long time that i am starting to lose faith in this and wonder whether it would be better just to put him down. He is 21. The thing is, he has so much energy. He tries to canter off whenever he is in an open field, loves chasing me around the paddock, and is so keen to go out hacking.
There is no heat in the leg, and you can poke and prod it to your hearts content- he doesn't feel a thing. But i don't understand- surely if he is lame, it must be hurting him? Note also he is very overweight (despite only getting restricted grazing) which does not help at all.

I really don't know what to do now. we are going to the vet on Tuesday to get another opinion. the vet seems optimistic. The reason I think to put him down is because I know that standing in a field all day is not enough for him; he lives on his own and used to have a fairly significant workload- he loves to be active. I don't know where to go from here. So, if it were you, what would you do?

 

[GoodyGoody]

If the damaged area is not painful your vet should be able to nerve block and confirm that. The swelling isn't necessarily terminal but if he is lame there is clearly something not right. How did he damage his leg in the first place?

 

[iduck]

had an accident in the yard when tied up- gate came off the hinges. Took him to the vet on Tuesday who said he is completely healed but that the fact he was still lame probably means the splint chip has healed in the path of the suspensory. He's given me DMSO to apply but I don't see how that would make a difference after such a long time. I think he is too old for surgery. The other possibility is that it could be scar tissue joining the suspensory to the bone which needs to be stretched so slightly more exercise would theoretically help. Not sure what to do now really! What im also finding weird is that hes been on DMSO for 3 days and doesnt smell...