I am a TERRIBLE Mom!!! - Updated with Pics at end

[DSDECKERT]

Remember I've been having issues with Bianca with lameness, and vet had diagnosed arthritis in left hock. Well a few weeks ago, the left seemed better and she came up lame in her right. She exhibited the same symptoms - and I didn't notice anything out of the norm, but I took her to the vet to get arthritis injections last night.

She immediately said "I don't think this is her hock" - she did a complete lameness exam, and tests and diagnosed a suspensory ligament tear. YOU COULD HAVE KNOCKED ME OVER!

So, we are going to take down her back heals a bit, and put egg-bar (is that right) shoes on her...I'm waiting for the farrier to call me back.

What else can I do for her? She said recovery is 6+ months?

[Pasogirlz]

Oh no! Sorry to hear that. Dont ya hate it when your babies are sick. :-?

[GeorgeGuns]

I try to discourage shoes for any kind of leg injury. NO one has ever convinced me how they work to support a leg. The added leverage needed to break over (remember, shoes are hard and inflexible, put the breakover way too far forward)

Suspensory (or any tendon/ligament) injuries require some immobilization to heal, and a few days of a poultice wrap sure wont' hurt and likely will help reduce inflammation and pain.
Its not hard to apply a "soft cast" to help support the joint = cotton batting wrapped around the leg heel to hock, wrap with elasticon or with two rolls of vet wrap. Stall rest or limited area rest (depending on how bad it is) until not limping and then gradual reconditioning (hand walks, progress to turn out and light riding)

My old lady mare Que has both of her suspensories in the rear quite permanently injured. When I first got her, she was doing okay, I was told that she had injured her stifle several years ago so when she went lame that's what I suspected. Vet came out and said her stifles were 100% fine and probably always were, but that it was her suspensory ligament, she wasn't too bad so we just rested her (that didn't last long, Que will hunger strike if kept in) and kept her wrapped. Sonograms had revealed that she had old scar tissue in her suspensories - this wasn't new! Prognosis was pretty good and I was actually looking forward to some light riding with her when the neighbors threw a very very noisy party. Que reinjured but good. Poultices, wraps, etc, but she is too far gone now:

I made a big mistake with her and took her heels down on her next trim. That did more damage than I could imagine, added a pulled hamstring to her injury. My vet nicely got upset with me for taking her heels down to a "normal" level, it was too much for her, too much strain on the leg.

So, if you must shoe her, this is one time where a few months with degree pads (can be rim pads to keep from covering the whole sole) or wedge shoes would benefit. If the egg bars are wedged, then yes go withthem, but having the bar at the back of the shoe is really doing nothing except adding more cuncussive force to the heel and she really needs to be able to land with her heel where she wants it. I'd probably recommend taping on different degrees of wedging to see where her best comfort zone is, and then matching that with the shoes and/or pads. Think of it like this - if you injure your achilles tendon, do you get a new pair of shoes? No, the treatment is to immobilize and if you get a different shoe it is one with either a normal heel or slightly raised. If you sprain your ankle you get a splint or cast of some kind right?

Barefoot, all I would do is roll the toe with a super dubbing - get her breakover back to just in front of the coffin bone, and trust me, she'll keep it there until she no longer needs that much room to break over comfortably. I am not saying don't trust your vet, but please talk to him/her about leaving the heels up a tad to reduce strain on an already injured structure. Suspensory injuries can heal, but they can also go bad really fast, BDTD.

Hope this helps!

[GeorgeGuns]

BTW, you are NOT a terrible mom, no way!!! Kudos to you for calling the vet!
Oh - MSM helps a LOT

[appyday]

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh NO Mr Bill

[Serendipity]

if you want to do shoes maybe go with pastic or rubber with tread thats way there is support and flexiblity you have to keep her up anyway so there won't be a lot of wear.

I'd love to put rubber shoes on my riding horses but if you show can't have them :(

[Barbwire]

Please don't beat yourself up, Deb. I think anyone reading this will acknowledge feeling the exact same way at one time or another.

We are not perfect, we just do the best we can, yes?

[Terry Wallace]

Eggbars are for SUPPORT, so she hopefully won't go down on her heel (experience heel sink...with a parallel to the ground pastern), to keep her heel more upright, instead of it sinking into the ground at the heel bulbs.

A suspensory tear is nothing to mess around with. Some don't ever really heal. How was the tear determined? Was it see-able on an ultrasound? Where is the tear...at the back of the branch? On the side? where was it seen?

I can tell you...she would not be barefoot here, under my care. Will there be a brace up the back of her leg from the shoe? How will it be stabilized? I guess my main question is...how bad a tear is it? As this would determine the type of treatment most effective.

Is there thickening on the back of the tendon? How about on the side indentations? Was a needle inserted to relieve any pressure from fliud (any fluid?)....

[motorgypsy]

Horses are indeed accidents waiting to happen. No matter how hard you try to keep them safe they persisit in doing dumb things!! We're so sorry!!!

We went through six months of rehab with Brandy who probably tore both suspensories and had a fracture when she panicked during an ice storm and reinjured later. She is now totally sound so don't give up. Here's what we did with all the great help from the board. We cound't get anyone to come to the farm ultrasound her and she couldn't be safely transported so we are going by what the vet said on the diagnosis.

We put wedges on her hooves with duct tape to get her where she was comfortable. We used a bench grinder to get the to the right size and we had to use three on the side with the fracture to get her where she'd put weight on it. Gorilla tape is the best duct tape by the way.

We put sports medicine boots on her initially ontop of socks so they wouldn't rub. We left them on for several days, then did them half a day for quite a while.
The vet did a DMSO drip and put her on bute for 9 days to keep the inflammation down.

We did DMSO on both sides for about a week topically.

We put her in a covered small area with roundpen panels with our mini mare as a companion and later Brilliant was next door after his surgery.

The area was about six round pen panels - half covered with stall mats and roofed with a portable shelter, the other half, hard clay and partly sun and partly under a small tree.

We put the wooden pellets on top of the stall mats - woody pet, equine fresh and so on - fairly deeply so she'd lie down a lot which she did.

After the six months was over we moved her to a boarding barn who had fairly level dry paddock with some shade and we kept her with or mini mare and our old mare whose knees were bothing her some. We put double SMBII's on her for the transport but she did fine.

Now she's running around like a maniac and her fetlocks have gone down to about 1/2 the size they were and continue to look more and more normal. Her angles have come up and we're doing light riding on her with SMBII's for support.

Vet advised both MSM and HA oral which we did and still have her on.

Please keep us informed. Again we're sooo sorry - horses are such idiots!!!

[Linda Y]

Oh, no. That is the same thing that happened to Cass, her half brother! Crap! He took 8 months to heal, then got the calcium deposits. He is much better now, and can be ridden lightly.

[pasofantasy]

You are not a bad mom! Look how much you tried to help her. I'm sorry to hear about her. You know, that she's in my prayer, along with you. It's exhausting having an injured animal! While taking care of her, please take care of yourself, too!

[Terry Wallace]

Deb...can I update this?

Deb told me in a PM that Bianca does not have a "complete" tear, she has a partial tear that looks like a "big vein" on her leg. I was very happy to hear the suspensory was NOT torn in half.....(that is not a repairable situation).

The type of tear described, should respond to rest and eventually heal.
Hard to say if soundness will return...time will tell. Linda...you know how these things go!

Horses....the adventure continues!

HOW is she doing now Deb???????????

[DSDECKERT]

Thanks Terry! I was in Charlotte the past few days, so haven't been on much.

She seems to be doing very well, I'd never know she had a tear if the vet hadn't told me. She's not on stall rest, fortunately, she's not a rowdy horse, she's pretty mellow and doesn't play and run alot. Stall rest - with her artiritis in the left hock, is NOT an option. I've got her on 1 mg of bute per day, and she's comfortable. Should I be vet-wrapping this for support? Sally (vet) didn't mention it. I also have taken her off the CetylM (she won't eat it anymore - she's super picky and there's lots of grass now, she just just ignores her grain if it's in there) and put her on HylaRx. If anyone wants a good deal on CetylM - I have one full and one 3/4 full tub! PM me and we'll work something out.

Farrier comes tomorrow at Noon to put on the eggbars. She hasn't had shoes on in over 4 years, but I think she'll be fine. Will let you know how she is once she has the shoes on....Sally thinks this will help tremendously.

Did you ever notice, when you have multiple horses, it's always your FAVORITE riding horse who has the issues? What's up with that?????

[Terry Wallace]

I'd sure give it a go.... get us pics if you can!
You know we "wanna see"......!

If it is just tiny surface tears, it will heal in time.... the objective is to TRY to keep her from damaging it "more" while it heals.

[motorgypsy]

Deb that's such great news. You are sooo right about your favorites getting injured. Brandy was one of our two main riding horses. We're soooo pleased with her progress. Good luck to your girl and may she have a rapid and complete recovery!!!

[DSDECKERT]

Good plan - I'll bring my camera out when he does the shoes tomorrow....see what I can get.

Linda - my vet says that Bianca is somewhat pre-disposed to these issues due to her confo - since Cass looks just like her - I suppose it was something in that Bandolero line that predisposes them? I should have delved deeper into her comment - i.e., what confo flaw predisposes her, but I was too shellshocked to question it.

Terry - any thoughts? Since you had her FULL sister? Did you have any hock/pastern issues with her?

[Terry Wallace]

No...none whatsoever...in fact..she had great hocks & legs all the way around...which attracted me to buy her. She had a wide range of gait, and did them all well. The young girl who bought her...is still showing her, and she is winning at local shows...no lameness issues at all. That mare must be 22-23 years old by now..can't remember!

WHAT is the confo flaw the vet is talking about? Is it sickle hocks? Too long in the pastern? Or ???

[DSDECKERT]

Bianca is neither - sickle hocked or too long in the pastern...like I said - I was completely blown away with the diagnosis and didn't ask her what confo flaw she thought would cause this. She's seeing her again on 8/21 - so I'll make sure I ask then. I could call, but she wouldn't remember.

Bianca also has a wonderful range of gaits, her canter is the best I've ever ridden in any breed. She can be a little trotty, but it's usually when she gets tired and lazy!

[motorgypsy]

I'm sure this isn't the case with your vet but ours didn't know the difference between Peruvians and paso finos and just thought automatically that since our mare has long flexy pasterns and was a paso that she would have DSLD which she doesn't.

Now that he has followed her for six years he says she just has fast flat track conformation like some thoroughbreds but to be careful on turns because they are more prone to hyperflexing her which undoubtedly how she was injured in the first place.

Please keep us posted!

[Terry Wallace]

Deb..PLEASE update the BB on how GREAT those eggbars are working!! :D :D :D :D :D

[DSDECKERT]

Like Terry said - Bianca is 100% better since she got her shoes on! I can't believe how much they are helping.

I'm not very good at taking pics - but here are a few:

This is her ankle - if you look closely, you can see some swelling just above her pastern - this is the suspensory ligament - remember, it's a small tear - so there's no real swelling:

http://gallery.pethobbyist.com/data/44504lamebianca.jpg

http://gallery.pethobbyist.com/data/44504lamebianca2.jpg

This is her right foot after the shoe went on:

http://gallery.pethobbyist.com/data/44504biancashoe2.jpg

http://gallery.pethobbyist.com/data/44504biancashoes.jpg

Jeff is a wonderful farrier - he is so good and patient with her!

[pasofantasy]

Glad to hear that! I pray for her healing. With shoes, I imagine, that she doesn't have to be stalled.

[Terry Wallace]

Yes..I can see that suspensory bulge just fine...I'm so glad those "heathan evil" shoes are doing a GOOD job!! Just as they have on hundreds of horses that came before her, just as they will on hundreds who come after her!

[appyday]

Shoes are a MUST in some cases..when Star (app) nerved herself and did that horrible damage to her hoof and back of her foot (see pic) she had to have a heart bar for weeks...every step she made pulled that open. I have a series of pics from start to 6-7 week finish and ridable if anyone wants to see them..

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y84/appyday/scan-1.jpg

[motorgypsy]

Terry we're not anti shoe and I haven't heard anyone talk about evil shoes including the natural trim people but the wedges did just fine on Brandy. Now IF the vet surgical and diagnostic facility we had appointments with hadn't cancelled four times and refuse to make another appointment after we got angry and IF we lived closer to another surgical facility with a high quality ultrasound and IF the vet had said she needed shoes for support I'm sure we would have used them but it was not safe to transport her three hours and the wedges did fine. As the old saying goes "There's more than one way to skin a cat" and there are certainly more than one correct way to treat a lame horse. We all share the hope that this horse gets totally well very soon.

[Terry Wallace]

You haven't heard anyone talk about "evil shoes"??? WHERE have you been the past two years?????


hehehehe!

[TrueStepPaso]

Deb.....I wish you and you're horse the best of luck! I am not familiar with ligament tears, so I do not wish to comment on advice, but I will say this.........the most important thing is to keep the hoof at its natural & needed angles. The rest is between you, your vet, and your farrier/trimmer. Good luck (again)!

[motorgypsy]

We been around since before water since we're older than dirt!!!

Shoes are like people - some good, some bad and some useless. A friend's thoroughbred mare had hooves that split in five places all the way up to the coronary band and went flat. They were really horrible looking. Some horses don't have good feet and others would if they had a decent diet. It's a lot cheaper to feed a good diet than to shoe a horse who wouldn't need it with a decent diet.

[TrueStepPaso]

Amen.