Tendon Recovery - Turnout (good idea?) / setback opinions?

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allbnl

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What are other people's views......getting fed up!!! Intermediate eventer (needs to be entertained) did SDFT April time, had course of Adequan. We are on controlled exercise of walk and trot, but becoming too playful and not wanting to ride him due to the bucking with no warning or reason! Recent scan showed although didn't completely tear he had damage, but there is still small amount of non-repair where new and old tissues meet. Vet suggest turnout so that can make him more pleasant to ride, but if gone this far why turn him out even under sedation as occassionally still have to ride him sedated and risk doing more damage. Does it really take a year for recovery? Havent gone through insurance yet, as dont want all legs excluded? Did anyone else have these set backs, as otherwise thought we could be building up to canter. When should you take the risk to turn out? In two minds whether to continue in doing until stronger, and turn-out when no lesions or further repair. Would love some feedback. Did anyone try shockwave, not that vet has suggested this?
 
Has the vet recommended stem cell therapy - could be worth looking in to.

Personaly I'd be sticking the horse out 24/7 and bringing it in to exercise.
 
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Havent gone through insurance yet, as dont want all legs excluded?

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This is a majorly risky strategy as your horse's clinical history would be available to your insurer if you have to claim in the future, and if you haven't declared something you run the risk of them refusing to pay out. It sounds like you've already spent a lot of money so I would be collecting receipts and putting in a claim.

I can understand you don't want all legs excluded but there is always latitude with a reputable insurer and a vet's letter to say the injury is unrelated.
 
Echo brightmount with regards to the insurance.
I turned mine away with ligament injury. He would have done himself more damage otherwise when I eventually turned him out and his quality of life in the mean time would have been greatly reduced. I'd be chucking him out especially if my vet said it was ok.
Also I am a great advocate of shockwave therapy having used it for hind suspensory damage and collateral ligament damage, definitely worth talking to your vet about.
 
Our point to pointer (now ex!) did his SDFT in May and it was touch and go whether we put him down. Tendons nearly always take 12 months minimum and the prognosis on ours was guarded. Still, he's a sweet horse with potential for a hacking/dressage career so we sent him to a spa for three weeks in the early stages as we felt this would do a better job than our cold hosing.

Five months on we are hand walking for half an hour twice a day and he goes in a small paddock for 4 to 5 hours per day. He is really good to walk out (we'd never have persevered otherwise) and does leap about a bit in the paddock but it helps to keep him sane to walk. My husband is itching to chuck him out full time but the vet is adamant he needs more walking to continue to strengthen the tendon first.

If you can find some sort of compromise situation like this, I'd certainly advise it. Tendons do take forever but having got this far, like us, you've got to stick with it. When first scanned, our boy's tendon was 5 times fatter than it should be and 6 weeks ago it was down to just 2.5 times. Of course it will never go back to normal but we have high hopes of a good repair and a useful future for the horse.
 
Hi, I’m in very a similar situation, my horse injured his SFT in March, he was on box rest till Jul with handwalking/horsewalker daily, he was then turned out in a very small paddock 24/7, I sedated him daily for a few weeks till I was sure he wouldn’t run around,
I moved yards at the beginning of September and I couldn’t leave him out 24/7 so he had to come in at night, he was a nightmare to lead to and from the field even with sedation, so advise you to leave him out 24/7 if your thinking about turning out.
I had just got through 2 weeks of ridden walking work when he had a bad scan so we are now back on box rest waiting for a specialist to look at him on the 4th. I don’t see a problem riding using sedation to continue ridden work but I agree he will be a lot calmer once turned out in a small paddock. But I totally understand what it like when they just explode, knowing they could do more damage, the last 6 months have been so stressful, I don’t think I can take any more to be honest.
 
My show jumper who did dsft had stem cell treatment shockwave and an operation to cut the check ligament behind the knee which relives the pressure on the tendon, he then did 1 year on the horse walker and was very carefully introduced back to jumping only for the other leg to give out because he had been over compensating for the bad leg, we never turned him out against the vets advice but I do now belive we should have because if the leg cant stand up to running around the field its never going to come back to the stresses of competition.
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I'm in a sort of similar position with an endurance horse who did his DDFT in a minor way at the end of May. After weeks of box and small paddock rest he's now on a walking exercise programme (never been more than 2/10ths lame with the injury and even then only for a few days). I've had no choice but to turn him out full time this past fortnight as my landlord was getting antsy about the mess in the small paddocks... and to be honest he was probably not doing himself any favours spinning like an idiot in a small space. He's much more settled in the big field.

My vet hospital said that stem cell therapy would not be suitable in his case as it wasn't a core lesion - just a small tear to one edge of the tendon. It is gradually healing from the pointed (inner) end of the tear but may never heal 100%. They wanted him on box rest from day 1 but he isn't the sort of horse who could go from being 50mile fit one day to being stuck in a box the next, so we did some weeks' paddock rest first for the sake of his sanity. It might not have been the best thing for the tendon but it was better for the whole horse!

Good luck with your boy.
 
hussar, one of my horses had the same injury, a small tear to the edge of the DDFT. She also had some collateral ligament damage and navicular issues. She made a complete recovery on field rest. We also took her shoes off. Foot balance is key to healing soft tissue damage in the foot. I would be cautiously optimistic that your horse will recover well on field rest.
 
I'm also in a similar situation, my mare did her tendon on the racetrack in May, I bought her in July, not knowing about the tendon injury, and she then reinjured herself a week later. So I'm counting the end of July as day 1 for her injury now, but she's been on box rest since then and has just done 20 days of in hand walking. She'll be scanned again a week tomorrow, and I'm hoping to get back on board for walking exercise, at least that's what my vet has said. She's been pretty good on box rest, but now she's being walked in hand she's also seeing that there's more to life than being cooped up and is starting to exert her authority now to the extent that I too am wondering about turnout.

I've also not claimed on my insurance because all I've paid for so far is the scans and I thought that by claiming I would exclude that leg from any further claim so thought I'd "save" the insurance claim in case she does it again and needs more treatment next time? Am I right then, from what you guys are saying, that there's no point to this as it will be excluded anyway and I had might as well claim?
 
If your insurers are anything like mine, your policy will state that you have to inform them of any illness/injury even if you're not claiming. Then they exclude whatever it is anyway! As I've just found out. My youngster developed a thoroughpin last October, I didn't bother claiming as it was just one scan, but I did notify the insurers - and bingo! on renewal they've excluded that hock.
 
Over the last two years I have had to do resticted turnout for ligament tendon splints and hock spavin surgery.If you can link 6 small paddocks with small entrances so he can move about and get to fresh grass without racing around you will have a much saner happier horse.The excercise will strengthen the tissues as long as he cant run around.I started with stable size paddocks and increased them gradually.I didnt use sedation and my horse was only 5 and a ex racer so had his odd loony moment when I used to hold my breath but paddocks really helped made him think about how to get to the new fresh grass.
He had had minor tendon tear and was all clear after 6 months although the vet said no jumping for a year.There is a product out from global herbs that is supposed to aid tendon repair but I used newmarket joint supplement just to make sure he had good building blocks to repair tissues.
 
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