Tendon injury

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AshTay

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Hi

New to the forum; I've been reading for a while but not yet posted.

My 21 year old connie X TB gelding suffered severe damage to his superficial digital flexor tendon last November while in the field. He was immediately brought in, hosed and bandaged and then hosed twice a day for the first week or so.

He was taken into the vets for an ultrasound scan which revealed how bad the injury was (not quite severed but a mess- I've googled ultrasound scans of tendon injuries on the net and not seen one as bad as his). The vet said the prognosis was poort but we decided to try stem cell therapy. Due to the bad weather over the winter, we weren't able to start this until 8 weeks after the injury but when we finally did get the cell harvest done, it was found they wouldn't grow (possibly because of his age). We then tried injection of platelet ruch plasma. He was scanned very 8 weeks or so for the first few months and it didn't start to look any better for about the first 3 months and then it started to heal but often we'd see that it had gotten worse again. He was being a good boy on boxrest - not stressed or boxwalking so we couldn't explain it.

At one point it looked well enough for us to begin in-hand exercise but after about 8 weeks of this it looked worse and we were advised to stop (we hadn't gotten beyond 15 mins walk a day). In July, after the latest scan, the vet pretty much said that there wasn't much else we could do other than keep him on boxrest (but even on boxrest, with no exercise, the injury was getting worse again).

So I decided to just turn him out and see what happened. Best case scenario was that the constant very gentle exercise in a field would help the healing. Worse case was he had a few weeks of being a horse again before we threw in the towel.

So he was turned out (with the aid of sedalin and after building up in-hand grazing to get his system used to grass again) in a small-ish dry flat paddock on his own. At first he got noticeably lamer (he had been almost sound in walk at his best) and there was some more swelling. It's now been 7 weeks and he's still out and he's not loads better but he's not worse. He's on and off lame in walk but the swelling has gone (it's still bowed, as it will no doubt always be). He's on a half sachet of danilon a day and seems happy and chilled in his paddock. He does tend to be a little more active than I would like but that's just who he is. I can't stop him trotting over to me but if he does look like something is upsetting him he's brought in to calm down.

I don't know whether I did the right thing turning him out but the alternative was neverending boxrest. I've had a lot of people come out with their "my horse had a tendon injury but 6 months later he was out competing again" which isn't helpful.

What I'd like to hear about are peoples experiences of really bad SDFT injuries in older (i,e, 20+) horses. Were you advised to PTS? Did you turn out? How lame was the horse? did he ever come sound again?

My horse will now be left out in his paddock (he comes in for grooms and pampering) and the plan is to ultimately get him living out with his friends again. I have all the time in the world to get to this stage so I'm not rushing anything.

Thanks for reading :)
 
My horse is 15 and she tore her DDFT which was finally diagnosed by MRI last Sept. Shes is sound now and back in work but I have to say that shes improved vastly with being turned out since May 24/7. I think you are doing the right thing with your horse, let Dr Green do his job with a helping hand from Mother Nature. Good luck.
 
interested to hear responses as my 18 yr old has a tear to her ddft.i coulnt have her on box rest so she is on a stable size flat piece of field.im not sure of her prognosis or what my decision will be re retired or pts if worse case scenario.
 
Thanks Izzwizz!


debsflo - I hope things work out for your mare. How are you managing her piece of field? Can you rotate it so it doesn't get muddy? My horse's paddock is probably about 2/3 of a 20mx40m school (I'm rubbish on areas). I couldn't make it very small as he'd have broken out in frustration. Keep us posted.
 
ash tay .good question at present i am moving her daily but with the rain is getting churned up .have been advised to hardcore and put chippings or similar on top for bad weather which appears to be here early
 
a friends horse had a blown tendon and he was 30yrs old at the time. they were advised to boxrest for as long as he could handle it. i think he was on box rest for about 2 months then put in a little 'pen' (no bigger than his stable!) in the paddock outside his stable for another month or so. they then decided that he was doing well enough to go back out with his friends and luckily he was never the sort of horse to charge around. he recovered enough to be ridden a couple of times a week and then sadly he had to be pts before the harsh winter set in as he was almost blind, going deaf, had liver and kidney problems and couldn't hold his weight, the day he was to be pts he was taken for a blast around the fields and had no problems at all with his leg.

no one will know if he could have done it again or not but he did recover enough to do it that one time and to be ridden out. he was on bute every day as well. you had to look really closely at his leg to see the way it bowed though, it wasn't obvious.

don't know if that helps or not.
 
The only comment/suggestion I would make is to consider not giving the bute/danilon or sedalin. Purely so that the pain he feels will limit what he does in the way of physical activity. I feel for you I do, although I can't offer any help as such, I'm 6 months in with a 9 yo mare who has had stem cell therapy which has worked and we are just starting controlled exercise. She is in foal (the backup plan) due April next year and has been back out in the field/part stabled since May, so she had 8 weeks box rest. She still has bowed tendons though (did both front legs) and one leg is noticeably more swollen than the other, I doubt it will improve much more, but hey she's sound and happy, and that's surely what really matters. We don't plan on doing anything with her really apart from letting her do her own thing in the field until the foal is weaned in over a years time... The good thing about having a nice mare when something like this happens to them and they are off work for long long time.

Good luck with your boy and I hope you get some positive stories about other older ponies
 
riding_high - thanks, that is helpful. My pony IS the sort to bomb about (which is how he did it in the first place) which worries me. I've noticed that even though the vets (and scientific literature) state that the scar tissue that forms is more brittle and prone to recurring injury, many "experienced" people have sworn that actually it's stronger.

PennyJ - I've actually been considering that. When I first put him out I took him off it in the hope that the pain would limit how much he moved about. But he was cantering in 5m circles that day!! I'm glad the SC therapy is working for your mare - I was gutted that we weren't able to see it through.
 
as PennyJ said maybe reduce the amount of bute/danilon/sedalin so that he does have a small bit of discomfort.
i had to do that with my own horse who has done his DDFT, when he was buted up he would charge around and jump out of his paddock so i figured i would just give him the bute when he looked lame in walk. so far it has worked!

just to add that it was about 9 months from when the old horse blew his tendons to being pts.
 
I have to be honest here - my old hunter did his SDFT badly and had quite a large bow halfway.

He had a year off with box rest and turn out and never really came back very well at all. He broke down again about 1.5 years later trotting across a field and we had him PTS immediately.

I think if a young horse does a leg it is worth giving them the time to get better because they have got time to do it. Older horses are less likely to recover and, if they do recover, what are they going to do?

If it were me I would call it a day at some point soon - but that is because I've been through it myself and have promised myself that I will never put an older horse through all the "getting better" for them to break down again. Sorry if that sounds harsh but having done it and losing my horse of a lifetime, I won't put myself or them through it.
 
carolineb- thank you for your very honest post. What you've said is how I've been thinking but whenever I try to discuss it with people they look aghast at the idea of having a horse pts due to a tendon injury - because most people's experience is from younger horses with much less severe injuries that have gotten over them and gone back to full work.

As things are, he's happy, chilled, looking very well for both his age and for being out of work for so long and his leg doesn't seem to be bothering him. I'm going to see how the winter goes but if I feel that he's starting to get worse again rather than better then I will have to make that decision. As soon as he tells me he's unhappy (and believe me, he's not one for keeping quiet about things) I'll know what to do. I'm not putting him through boxrest again.

xxx
 
Just wanted to update this thread from nearly two years ago.

So i left him out, over a few months he became sounder and putting front shoes back on also helped him loads. The drugs were reduced and by August last year, he was sound on half a sachet every other day and he went out into the big field next door to his paddock with the others and hooned around and had a great time :)

By February of this year, he was totally drug-free and sound and happy. It was suggested by others that I should ride him again as he used to love hacking but I didn't. I'd never have forgiven myself if he'd have injured himself again while being ridden.

But round about Easter time he started to look slightly lame again. He'd stiffen up terribly if left in for any length of time so boxrest wasn't an option. So on vets advice he was put back on drugs and left out with his friends as much as possible as he'd either re-injured it, adhesions had developed, or arthritis had set in. But then the grass came through and he suffered a kick and had raised pulses so i had to restrict his grazing which made him miserable.

So the decision was made that it was time to say goodbye. He was getting worse, was never going to get better, had started to lose his spark and no way did I want him to live out his final days in a starvation paddock (he's never had lami but I couldn't risk it).

So we said goodbye to him yesterday on a beautiful sunny morning. Was heartbreaking but the right thing to do and the end was much more peaceful than I had expected.

I'm glad we carried on trying to fix him as it gave him a few months of a happy retirement living out with a herd and he deserved that after being so good about the boxrest and restricted grazing. I have a photo on my phone of him galloping across the field last August when he first went out into the big field again and that moment was priceless.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
 
What a lovely owner you are, I have had troubles with nasty tendon injuries- very 'messy' adhesions formed after old reinjuries at the ddft- (the mare is now fully sound eventing against all odds) so understand how horrid it is in full! Sounds like you handled it perfectly and you can certainly be happy that you made all the right choices.

RIP x
 
charleysummer said:
What a lovely owner you are, I have had troubles with nasty tendon injuries- very 'messy' adhesions formed after old reinjuries at the ddft- (the mare is now fully sound eventing against all odds) so understand how horrid it is in full! Sounds like you handled it perfectly and you can certainly be happy that you made all the right choices.

RIP x
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Thank you xxx
 
I've an elderly on box rest with a tendon injury at the moment. I just read your thread. You clearly gave your friend a great retirement. But above that you knew when it was time to let go. I think that is the bravest thing any owner can do, knowing when it is time to say goodbye before the suffering really starts. I hope in the days to come you get a lot of peace from that.

Much love to you
 
Watty said:
I've an elderly on box rest with a tendon injury at the moment. I just read your thread. You clearly gave your friend a great retirement. But above that you knew when it was time to let go. I think that is the bravest thing any owner can do, knowing when it is time to say goodbye before the suffering really starts. I hope in the days to come you get a lot of peace from that.

Much love to you
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Thank you Watty. I hope that your OAP makes a full recovery.
It's been a month since I said goodbye and I'm still not feeling at peace with it. At the time it felt like the right thing to do but since then the doubt has crept in and I've struggled with it. I know in my head that I did the right thing but I'd give anything to have had him for just a few more weeks. I miss him so much. xx
 
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