Torn extensor tendon?

[dianneS]

I'm asking this question for a friend.

She had a mare get tangled in a fence recently and she tore her rear extensor tendon. Its healing beautifully, but the tendon is torn and was not able to be repaired. The vet said she will learn to compensate and the other surrounding muscles will help support.

Does anyone know of any good articles or information on the subject of re-conditioning a horse after an extensor tendon injury/tear?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

[patandchickens]

It's truly not a huge deal. I have dealt with two horses with this injury, and while both of them had lasting cosmetic effects (bulge/lump in area) and were perhaps not *quite* 100% as sound as before the accident, tending to subtle unlevelness especially on uneven or muddy ground, both eventually came quite completely sound for any normal purposes and in fact one resumed showing in 2'6" hunter classes with no problem.

We just waited til the injury was healing well, then brought the horses back very *slowly* and *gradually*, sticking to excellent footing. It's been quite a while, I don't remember anymore how long recuperation took, I am thinking 6-9 months ish.

I don't know off hand of any good articles but try www.thehorse.com or googling, there are doubtless things out there. Or search the chronicle of the horse forums.

Good luck to your friend,

Pat

 

[goodhors]

We had a horse cut the hind leg tendon, and had to keep her wrapped and stalled for about 6 months. The tendon regrew, but there was visible damage to the leg.

She had to be wrapped like leg was casted from the stifle on down to the ground, stalled to prevent much movement. Flexion of the leg in walking would prevent the regrowing process by ripping things loose over and over.

We used the quilting cotton batting from JoAnn fabric, much cheaper than medical cotton. That outer layer does not need to be sterile. You just kept layering it on, until leg was immobilized with cotton thickness.

The athletic wrapping tape in 6-packs from Meijers is about as cheap as it comes, sticks well, but not hard to remove like adhesive tape. And you use a LOT of tape. Brown gauze from the vet supply, in 4 or 6 inch wide rolls to hold thing in place tight to the leg with wound part. Omaha Vaccine sold it, but you had to ask for it, wasn't in the catalog. Cheaper than white gauze, again not in the wound, so doesn't need to be sterile. Buy in quantity, saves on shipping.

Our horse regrew the tendon, came back to work, though leg was scarred and thickened. She went on to a fine career as a jumping horse, leg never bothered her. We were later able to ID her for new buyers trying to find out about her. Papers had not been sold with her, and we got a new copy for them. All they knew was horse was from Michigan, and that she was a Cleveland Bay. The Cleveland Association gave them our name, since we are probably the only members in the State! Yep, we had sold her, so we could give breeding and numbers of parents. Plain bay horses can be hard to ID, leg scarring was the positive marker. She went into a broodmare herd, made some nice babies for them.

So given enough healing time, stall rest, immobilizing the leg well, horse can come back. As stated, LOTS of time needed, we did not turn ours out loose in pasture again for probably another month after wraps were off. Just some ponying at walk from another horse, because I could not walk fast enough or far enough, to keep her easily restrained. She liked being ponied. She got no grain while stalled, it was all hand walking up and down the barn aisle during that long time. Her being thin helped reduce load on the bad leg. Sometimes you have to be really hard about stuff, no grain, confinement, to get them healed. We swapped horses daily, so she always had someone inside with her as a friend. She got the rest of the year off before going into training, she was late 2yr old when injured in Dec, 4 when broke out in the spring of 2nd year.

Good luck with the recovery of horse. Vet cost and bandaging costs were about equal for us. BIG. Amazing what bandaging expenses run into, even cutting costs with the non-sterile material. And don't forget the time factor, even with wrapping every third day after wound healed you spend a lot of time cold hosing the wound, wrapping them back up. We were real glad she healed so well, was usable. Vet had said she would be if we kept leg immobilized. I keep wrapping wounds until the hair grows back. Leaving them uncovered earlier has always made the new skin split and you have to start over. I ignore the Vet advice on that, he wanted wraps off sooner. The worst scarring our horse got was when husband left off the bandage on Vet advice when I wasn't home for the visit. "Looks REAL good, you can quit bandaging now". Husband listened to the Vet with letters after his name. Only 4 hours uncovered, she had split new skin wide open in dry air, was a mess with a big open hole again. I was LIVID, no one else was wrapping legs and I had said keep it covered. So that added more time on to healing, and made some extra scarring that should not have been there.

 

[Katied]

It was a common problem working with racehorses, and she will come back where she compensates on it but she'll never be 100% competitively sound but to a lot of people that doesn't matter.

I gather it's a rather new injury? The hardest part for the horses I was seeing was being stalled with no exercise, keeping them quiet long enough for it to heal took some patience.

On reconditioning off hand I don't know any articles but I will see if I can dig some up for you. I would off the top of my head recommend a Horse Pool or swimming her for therapy (not a aqua tread). After she is ready to start reconditioning she'll probably be pretty weak from not getting much exercise and the pool will allow her to exercise and build some muscle without putting any weight on the newly healed injury. Turnout is good but be careful she doesn't go crazy and re-injury herself at the new found freedom.

 

[patandchickens]

It was a common problem working with racehorses, and she will come back where she compensates on it but she'll never be 100% competitively sound but to a lot of people that doesn't matter.

Er, are you certain you're talking about EXTENSOR tendon tears? Which are almost nonexistant in racehorses, and not particularly tragic. This is the not very prominent tendon going down the FRONT of the cannon bone.

As opposed to FLEXOR tendon tears, which are extremely common in racehorses and DO usually result in never being 100% competetively sound (or if sound, often not holding up under very strenuous work). Flexors are "the tendons" going down the back of the leg above the fetlock (well, also the suspensories are there)

Two quite different things, just checking whether you may have misread?

Pat

 

[Katied]

No I am talking about extensors, we had 3 in our barn. We had 6 with flexor tendon tears, lots with bone chips, and several with slab fractures in their knees and quite a few that broke their seasmoids. It was a large barn of over 50 head so perhaps 3 in the barn is not that many but it seemed like a lot to me, either way we did see several in the barn with torn extensors.