Unexpected Suspensory Ligament injury - experiences?

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CharlesMax

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Received bad news last week - I was about to sell my lovely horse last week. I was schooling him one evening and noticed he was slightly lame. The vet was coming the following day to give him his shots so I asked him to check the leg. He has just confirmed a suspensory ligament injury after a full examination/scans/diagnostics.

I am absolutely gutted as he is a lovely horse who would have sold easily and I even had possible buyers lined up! making the decision to seel him to get a more scopy horse was hard enough and now it has all gone wrong!

The vet has said 3-6 months and I'd imagine it would take a while to bring him back into work (if all goes to plan!) before selling him on - possibly a year???? Because I work full time, he is on full livery so I cannot afford to pay 2 liverioes if I buy another horse now.

Have any of you had experiences with suspensory ligament injuries? Has anyone just turned a horse away with such an injury to give them time to recover? He is a hardy horse and would cope being out over the winter months but I don't want to put him in a position where he can possibly cause himself further damage!

My vet is great but he is giving me safe advive and possibly being overly cautious which is undertsandable.

Any advice/sharing of experiences would be appreciated - cannot get my head around a year without riding and hirelings for hunting are very expensive!

Sorry if slightly drawn out - this is probably more of a vent than anything else!!
 
Sorry, your in for a bit of a long haul. Suspensories are easier to fix than tendons so that is one good thing. But it will be a 2-3 months of box rest and then 3 months of gradually bringing him back into work. After 6 months so long as everything has gone to plan normal work can start to resume along with turnout.

We've never just turned a horse away with such an injury, we have always done the box rest and build up.
 
I've had a bit of experience with Suspensory Ligaments (foreleg only). My mare had ligament injuries on both front legs (separately, about 2 years apart) and we did the full treatment - box rest for 3 months, scans, shockwave and then controlled rehab programme. One leg has remained fine but she subsequently had a minor ligament injury on the other leg. This time she had reduced box rest until she was sound (about 6 weeks I think) and then she was turned away. However she is pretty sensible so I was confident she was unlikely to mess around too much in the field. She was put on loan and bred a (lovely) foal, has been lightly ridden and almost 2 years on is still sound. I'd like to bring her back into full work but I don't have time and can't find a suitable person to loan her too for the winter so she's now out at grass until the weather improves in the spring.
I think it depends on whether he's likely to charge about in a field - but I'd certainly be box resting until he is sound. I was lucky in that her coming sound coincided with me finding a new horse so I didn't have to have 2 stabled at livery at the same time. Fingers crossed for you that it all works out.
 
I am in a similar position. My horse ironically isn't lame though! But the ligament was very inflamed and the vet grounded me.
I was initially advised 1 month off, 1 month walk and 1 month trot. At re-scan it had improved but not enough. He is now turned out completely for the winter and I will rescan in Jan/Feb. (which will be 4-5 months in field). My vet never mentioned boxrest (maybe because horse was never lame? - which is admitedly unusual for such an injury). I have been told its a 'time' thing and am planning on 3 months of slow work to get him back to full fitness. He is however very happy in his field and the injury does seem to be getting smaller.

So I would definately recommend the time out in the field. He is settled out so there is rarely silly galloping (which could aggravate the injury I agree).

I think time out rather than boxrest is also less stressful for a horse. Stress = not as effective healing.

Good luck.
 
There are many of us on here with v similar problems - and a big post in vetinary about it now :)

There are some treatments for it, but time I think is the best, although the horse might not return to their previous workload afterwards. :)
 
I turned out my pony after a serious suspensory ligament injury (against vet advice) because after 2 weeks box rest she was spinning and imo likely to do more harm than out grazing. Fortunately we got away with it and after 4 mnths she came back into work and was able to hunt before the end of the season. But a more valuable, lively horse you would be taking a big risk. Good luck.
 
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