Tendon injury

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katrid16

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My horse has a recent tendon injury in the field he was scanned yesterday and it is quite severe , the vet has given me a few options including stem cell therapy which I can't afford . He is now on obvious box rest but wondered if anyone had any ideas from experience to speed up or at least ease the recovery .
 
Which tendon?
How old is your horse?

My horse trashed his superficial digital flexor tendon in the field last november. The injury was severe and the vets prognosis was poor. We tried stem cells (he's 22 - his cells just wouldn't grow), platelet-rich plasma (no effect) and he was on boxrest for 8 months. It would get better but then start to get worse again. Eventually I decided to just turn him out in a small paddock and that's where we're at now. It was either that, endless boxrest or PTS.

Not much help sorry. You'll get lots of stories ranging from people who's horses won Burghley three days after they snapped their tendons to people who's horses didnt come right no matter what they did and they had to be pts. it can get a little annoying after a while - no two horses are the same.

I suppose the obvious things are to keep him rested and follow advice of your vet about when to start gentle exercise with him. From what I've heard and read, stem cell therapy is the best option but it is expensive (insurance will pay for it..).
 
We just gave my old hunter time - he bowed his SDFT pretty majorly.

He never really came right and broke down again so was PTS.

If he'd been a young horse then we would have tried anything we could to get him right. He was about 19 by then and had hunted hard since a youngster and if I'd known what the outcome was going to be then I would have had him PTS there and then. As it was we gave him lots of time to come right. Unfortunately because he was old once he stopped working, everything else started to fall apart as well.

I believe that the older the horse, the less likely they are to come right - or at least return to the level of work they were previously doing.

Fingers crossed everything goes ok for you.
 
He is only 5 so has time to come right and he is not insured for vets fees so stem cell therapy is out of the question and the vet didn't fill me with confidence that it would work anyway - he is such a nice person to do that even if he doesn't come right for me he will do someone as a hack or low level dressage I think he deserves that .
 
Hi there, Ive had a mare who luckily for us was insured for vets fees and has had the stem cell therapy, which appears to have worked... We have brought her back into very light work, she wants to do more than we are letting her do at the moment, which we are pleased to see. We were rather unlucky and the scan revealed that she had actually managed to do the SDFT in both front legs :( She is 9 years old

I think your only other option is rest. Our mare was on full box rest for 2 months, except that she was allowed out to graze in hand whilst her stable was being mucked out, leading up to letting her graze free range whilst being mucked out, to restricted/limited turn out by 3 months (when she started to trot up sound in the field), then up to normal over night turn out/in during day with her field mate. We stopped using the bute once we started letting her out free range, we wanted her to "feel" it if it was hurting and that would hopefully stop her hooning about. She needed Sedalin to cope with the box rest, I honestly think the short spell eating grass every day helped immensely with keeping her sane...

We are in the fortunate position of having been able to put her in foal for next year, so she won't be doing too much ridden work wise for the next 12 months, by which time I am very hopeful that we will have strong, well healed tendons, but who knows? The claim runs out in March, we're having another scan done at the beginning of December to see how it is all going so we can decide what to do (if anything) in the final 3 months before the claim period finishes.

Don't forget one of the old fashioned ways of treating tendon injuries was to turn them away for a year, this is why we went down the foal route, just in case nothing else worked.
 
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katrid16 said:
My horse has a recent tendon injury in the field he was scanned yesterday and it is quite severe , the vet has given me a few options including stem cell therapy which I can't afford . He is now on obvious box rest but wondered if anyone had any ideas from experience to speed up or at least ease the recovery .
Click to expand...

It would help to know which tendon it is. There are a million an one (probably more) bits of advice and methods for treating tendon injury and as AshTay says there is not one case that is the same! :confused:

Rest is vital, I find box or box sized area in field (if he will stay in that) is best at least in the initial period. This can vary greatly in length, there is no right answer here I'm afraid, my experience is 4-12 weeks is the most common, but much longer periods can be used - depends on many things, not least the severity of the initial injury and the temperament of the horse.

Don't lose heart, just because stem cell is a no go for this case. Imagine - horses did get better before we could do this technique!!;) It is a great technique but all is not lost without it's use. Irap is another product that is worth asking about - expensive but can be very useful too.

Speak to your vet about what rehabilitation exercise programme he/she may have in mind. Often walking from the box can start sooner than you think and it might give you something to look forward to.

I'd also ask if shockwave might be of use? It very much depends on the structure involved and injury sustained, but I'd ask anyway?

Failing that, cold therapy for 20mins three times daily in the first week or so is beneficial and support bandages on both legs are a good idea.

Good luck
Imogen
 
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There are various options for speeding the healing of injuries including tendons such as Scenar, Tecar, lasers etc You can also support the process with homeopathy or herbs. There is every possibility your horse will recover so don't lose heart. :)
Best wishes Roger
 
With such a reply - Roger - that has to be Roger Meacock? Quite a few years have elapsed since we last had contact but hope all is going well for you.

Rest, rest and rest is the best remedy with a very structured rehab programme. To reiterate what others have said, so much depends on the structures involved, the exact location of the injury and its severity. We've just put a TB back into training after a year off followed by 12 weeks of strengthening work.

Using Equissage + the leg boot will help with blood flow.

Keeping a horse sane on box rest is not difficult with the right approach, management regime and environment.
 
It is the SDFT he has injured and quite badly ! there was a lot of black area on the scan - my pan ( at the moment ) is 3 months box rest which he has had 3 weeks of already and is quite sane then maybee another scan to see how he is doing unless a alternative not too expensive treatment is suggested .?
 
Can any of the vets on here comment on infra red (cold laser) treatment. It seems to research very well on tendon injuries and oedema (?) associated with it. I'm lucky to be married to an engineer who has just made me a cold laser machine to the same spec as the ones you can buy on eBay. I am using it on a kick injury (VERY severe, think suspected broken leg!) to the tendon just above the knee, and massive oedema on the knee itself. All I can say is that there is significant improvement in the profile of the knee since I started it six days ago. Of course it might just have been ready to do that, but it hadn't changed for the better in at least a month. Desperate to get a better cosmetic result (the horse is sound and jumping 5ft hedges!) and with no vets fee insurance to run up a big bill on, like the OP, the cold laser seemed worth a try.
 
My friends horse had a nail injury in her hoof inJuly which has severly damaged her deep digital flexor tendon. She went to Newmarket and was treated accordingly and progress was good. However, the last few wks she has been 'toeing it' and now using her other hind to compensate for her weight. She is on maximum strenght bute, cold water hosing of leg, box rest etc

We are desperate to try and help her. If you have any suggestions please help! REading the details above some have suggested homeotherapy - what type etc?

I hope your horse is improving and if you have tried any of the suggestions have they worked?
 
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