anyone with experience with severed ligaments and both tendo
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anyone with experience with severed ligaments and both tendo
I have a 9 year old gelding that injured his hind leg right above the fetlock. He severed both tendons and his suspensory ligament. Vet tried to suture the tendons and ligaments but when he woke from anesthesia he was an idiot and completely reinjured himself. We ordered a kimzee splint and it is on. It has been 14 days post injury and he is comfortable and happy. His original superficial laceration is open and aggravated byt the straps of the Kimzee splint. My vet does not have much experience with this injury as most people euthanize due to the poor prognosis of survival and usually at most only being pasture sound. Has anyone had any success with this type of injury? We are hoping that his skin will develop some granulation tissue where his skin wound is. We are now putting sugar on the wound which I have seen great success being used where sutures cannot work. THe plan is to keep the kimzee on for 3-4 weeks and then slowly decrease the angle by reshaping the Kimzee or wedge shoes by degrees. Our hope is only to have this horse live and be pasture happy with his buddys for the rest of his life. There is no expectation of being riding sound. Anyone with any experience would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
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lindsay_aggie
- Yearling
- Posts: 56
- Joined: Sun Aug 10, 2008 3:32 pm
- Location: Castroville, Texas
I have experience with the injury that you are describing. Mine was a 5 year old mare just off the track who severed the deep and superficial flexor (not suspensories though). We used a Kimzey splint on her and had wonderful results. Here is the treatment plan that we used:
Until the wound on her leg healed we did bandage changes every two days. You need to put a full support bandage under the splint that is thick enough to keep pressure sores from forming.
Once her wound healed we stretched out the bandage/splint changes to twice a week, still keeping a thick support bandage underneath the splint.
While all of this is going on be sure to keep a close eye on the "good" leg for signs of laminitis. Our mare never favored the injured leg once the splint was on, we were lucky about that.
During this time keep the horse confined to a stall of course with deep bedding.
We splinted for 6 months. The vet that I worked with told me that after 4 months the tendon should be scarred in but if we wanted to be extra cautious go ahead and keep the splint on longer to ensure that the leg was as healed as possible. I think that this was the most important part- don't stop using the splint until the leg is healed well enough not to rupture again!
After the 6 month period we went to just using a standing bandage to support the leg a little and a shoe with a 1 inch heel to keep from stretching the scarred in tissue too much. Over a period of about 4 months we lowered the heel on the shoe until the mare was able to go barefoot.
It has been three years since her initial injury and you would never know that she had a problem. The back of her hind leg on the injured side is thicker than the non-injured side but she goes sound.
Here are a couple of things that we learned while treating this injury.
- Use duct tape over the velcro splint straps and behind the heel plate, otherwise the straps will loosen and you risk having the horse throw the splint or have his heel pull out the back
- Once the wound is under control use standing bandages or polo wraps as the outer layer of the bandage (instead of vet wrap) and reuse the padding by moving the inner layer to the outside and using a new piece for the inner layer
- Long term sedation can be helpful since the horse has to be confined for so long. Everyone has a personal preference but I used Fluphenazine just to take the edge off of her excess energy.
- If he starts to lose leg hair under the bandage you can bathe the leg with Chlorhex (Nolvasan) scrub to kill bacteria that are causing this to happen.
We treated our mare at home the entire time- once you have the wound resolved it is really just a lot of bandage and splint changes.
Sorry for such a long post but this can be a really difficult injury to deal with. I was lucky enough to work for a vet who had treated several of these types of cases and he did a great job of advising me. Hopefully this helps. Good luck!
Lindsay
Until the wound on her leg healed we did bandage changes every two days. You need to put a full support bandage under the splint that is thick enough to keep pressure sores from forming.
Once her wound healed we stretched out the bandage/splint changes to twice a week, still keeping a thick support bandage underneath the splint.
While all of this is going on be sure to keep a close eye on the "good" leg for signs of laminitis. Our mare never favored the injured leg once the splint was on, we were lucky about that.
During this time keep the horse confined to a stall of course with deep bedding.
We splinted for 6 months. The vet that I worked with told me that after 4 months the tendon should be scarred in but if we wanted to be extra cautious go ahead and keep the splint on longer to ensure that the leg was as healed as possible. I think that this was the most important part- don't stop using the splint until the leg is healed well enough not to rupture again!
After the 6 month period we went to just using a standing bandage to support the leg a little and a shoe with a 1 inch heel to keep from stretching the scarred in tissue too much. Over a period of about 4 months we lowered the heel on the shoe until the mare was able to go barefoot.
It has been three years since her initial injury and you would never know that she had a problem. The back of her hind leg on the injured side is thicker than the non-injured side but she goes sound.
Here are a couple of things that we learned while treating this injury.
- Use duct tape over the velcro splint straps and behind the heel plate, otherwise the straps will loosen and you risk having the horse throw the splint or have his heel pull out the back
- Once the wound is under control use standing bandages or polo wraps as the outer layer of the bandage (instead of vet wrap) and reuse the padding by moving the inner layer to the outside and using a new piece for the inner layer
- Long term sedation can be helpful since the horse has to be confined for so long. Everyone has a personal preference but I used Fluphenazine just to take the edge off of her excess energy.
- If he starts to lose leg hair under the bandage you can bathe the leg with Chlorhex (Nolvasan) scrub to kill bacteria that are causing this to happen.
We treated our mare at home the entire time- once you have the wound resolved it is really just a lot of bandage and splint changes.
Sorry for such a long post but this can be a really difficult injury to deal with. I was lucky enough to work for a vet who had treated several of these types of cases and he did a great job of advising me. Hopefully this helps. Good luck!
Lindsay
