advice on pulled tendon muscle on thoroughbred horse used for jumping

warmblood

to all equestrian people

Our thoroughbred 6yr old a month ago pulled a tendon muscle and it swelled up vet called and with treatment and rest it has improved greatly.Advice at moment is to walk him and do little bits of a trot to start getting him back to full fitness.Our son is restless as he wants to get back jumping mini comps soon.Any advice on making speedy rehabilitation would be appreciated.Should support bandages be used
thanking you

I would never, ever rush a tendon injury.

fits

Zarabas right. Rest is the most important thing or it could become a long term problem. Follow your vets advice.

kick-on

was it "fired" or what sort of treatment was used?

warmblood

vet recommended that effected leg be wrapped and doused in cold water 3 or 4 times a day swelling has now gone down.Horse had to remain in stable for a few days and now just walked and can be rode but only for half hour walking only

finbarrk

I'd say let him off for the winter or you mightn't have a horse for next summer.

togster

Throw the horse out and keep an eye on hime. It's best he can move around and bring him in spring time. Look if you rush this the problem will occur, there is no substitute for rest and heling time. Tendon problems are notoriously difficult to get right if the horse is put into work too soon. Give him a few months of and then see.

convert

The best thing you can do for a tendon injury is lots of rest. As the other posters have mentioned, if you rush it now you will only cause more problems in the long run.

Initial bandaging can help, especially for support, but cold hosing would also be recommended. (If you had a stream/river nearby, and was safe for the horse to walk into and stand in it, it would be perfect). Bandgaing and cold hosing will help reduce the swelling, but just because the swelling has gone down doesn't mean the tendon has healed.

If it was my horse, I would give him the winter off, and see how he is next spring. As finbarrk said, if you don't treat it properly now and give adequate rest, your son may not have a horse for the summer.

togster

Bandaging and cold hosing only help with the inititial trauma. The problem is that the fibres remain weak. Like convert said, just because the swelling is gone, does not mean the tendon is ok to be worked. It is good that the horse can move around because it increases blood flow to the affected area. This in turn will increase the chances of recovery more rapidly. The tendon should heal in "all directions". If you leave the horse stabled for periods of time the tendon will heal but in that "direction" only. I hope you get what i mean. Basically tenonds should heal in the way they are designed to be used. I would also suggest you don't turn the horse out with others for a while as he could re-injure himself galloping around. Please learn from my mistakes :mad:

warmblood

Thanks so much for all your advice we appreciate it and know you cant beat practical experience from horse owners.Hope in long term the horse will not have a reoccurance of problem.Thoroughbreds have particularly slim tendons so we will be wary.Thanks again

SanNJay

Hi,

my advice would be to get him into the river. twenty minutes standing in it and there won't be any swelling. our vet said it is the best thing for them.
and then if your still worried put 'ice blue' on his tendons in the stable. you've probably heard of it. keeps the leg cold.

i wouldn't put him out, i'd say he'd be alright. TB's are delicate like that.

thats my two pence worth.

Sandra

SanNJay

SanNJay wrote: »

i wouldn't put him out, i'd say he'd be alright. TB's are delicate like that.

An amazing prognosis given your contact with horse was based on a paragraph written on the internet.. :rolleyes:

togster

SanNJay wrote: »

Hi,

my advice would be to get him into the river. twenty minutes standing in it and there won't be any swelling. our vet said it is the best thing for them.
and then if your still worried put 'ice blue' on his tendons in the stable. you've probably heard of it. keeps the leg cold.

i wouldn't put him out, i'd say he'd be alright. TB's are delicate like that.

thats my two pence worth.

Sandra

Well then you don't know what you are talking about. Initial trauma, yes you should keep the leg cold, but as already pointed out, the recovery process takes along time and requires patience. So OP don't listen to this advice. And don't apply ice blue and bandage over.

needadvice

I'm hugely with Togster and Zaraba on this one this is a mine field and take advice from none of us use a Curragh based vet to scan the tendon and take your advice from there. No tendon no horse to jump.

convert

I'd definitely agree with Zaraba and Togster here. I've seen too many people rush tendon injuries and end up with no horse at all. Please take your time and give your horse plenty of time to heal. A few months is nothing compared with not having a horse in the future.

needadvice wrote: »

use a Curragh based vet to scan the tendon.

Surely there are other reliable vets around the country who could scan a horse's leg and give good advice?!

needadvice

Doubtless there are many just a safe suggestion but indeed I assumed easy access to that area:)

SanNJay

may i ask what is wrong with standing a horse in the river if they've swelling in their leg or applying ice blue to it.

i'm curious as to what harm it causes the horse?

Sandra

MDFM

SanNJay wrote: »

may i ask what is wrong with standing a horse in the river if they've swelling in their leg or applying ice blue to it.

i'm curious as to what harm it causes the horse?

Sandra

If this is the advice that the vet treating the animal recommends then I'd say do it..But as it was already said earlier, the right advice for this horse won't be found/given on this forum. Best to stick with what the veterinary experts advise.

togster

SanNJay wrote: »

may i ask what is wrong with standing a horse in the river if they've swelling in their leg or applying ice blue to it.

i'm curious as to what harm it causes the horse?

Sandra

It won't do any harm. In fact the opposite. But it's only effective with the initial swelling/trauma. Tendon injury is hard to fix in a short space of time. It should heal as the horse moves.

Osteosam

SanNJay wrote: »

may i ask what is wrong with standing a horse in the river if they've swelling in their leg or applying ice blue to it.

i'm curious as to what harm it causes the horse?

Sandra

Hi,
I'm an Osteopath (humans mainly but now studying to add in animals, mainly our equine friends) and thought it might be useful to explain the basics of tendon healing... A lot of people hear the hot/cold argument and don't really get why you do one thing or the other.

So, in the first instance, the injury will go through the inflammatory phase - which is where it is hot and swollen and the area is full of lots of blood and all sorts of tissue waste products from the body's immune response to the injury. This phase is most active in the first 24 hours, but depending on the degree of the injury can last up to a week or so... good management including application of COLD compresses/water etc are most effective at this point. The thing to be aware of is that tissues are less 'stretchy' when cold, and so you need to be very careful not to put any excess strain on the injured tendon while in this phase as it will have even less ability to absorb that stress... so rest is optimal.

Secondly, the tendon will enter the repair stage. This phase lasts up to about 6 weeks after the injury. This is where the body will start to heal the tear, and where you want to encourage it to heal in the correct line of force like was mentioned earlier by togster. The body will lay down collagen (which is one of the main constituents of tendon) in any old direction if not placed under slight strain. When strain is placed along the line of the tendon, the collagen will be laid down in the line of the strain... along the tendon. This results in optimal strength of the healed tendon. The aim!! So gentle exercise with minimal loading up of the tendon is essential to encourage good healing. This is best achieved by controlled weight bearing exercise... very easy to tell a human this, less easy to convince a horse or dog to control their movement. If your horse is the calm sort, wandering around a paddock grazing is the best right now, or if they're boxed usually, long steady walks with minimal leaping and cavorting is prescribed.
Also, in this phase it is useful to apply WARMTH as this increases the blood flow to the area. Blood flow = healing is increased. Tendons are naturally very poorly supplied by bloodflow, so if you were to apply cold during this phase of healing you will actually be slowing down the healing by limiting the blood flow even more than normal! THIS is why it is important not to apply ice to the leg after the initial inflammatory phase is over. You could actually be doing the horse a major disservice! In this phase, you want to encourage the tendon to be as flexible as possible therefore the application of warmth and gentle controlled stretching of the tendon (either controlled movement or stretching the tendon by hand).
Just to throw an extra spanner in the works, if you have the time and patience, applying alternating hot/cold is ok at this time, as you will actually be encouraging the blood to pump - heat expands the blood vessels, cold contracts them, so you actually would be helping good fresh blood flow into and out of the area. Fresh blood = even better healing.
If you dont' have the time to do this process properly though, you're better off doing nothing than applying cold only.

So finally we get to (hopefully) the remodellling phase. This is usually 6 - 10 weeks post injury. This is where the new collagen starts to form into fibrous tissue... scar tissue. This is where it will become very obvious if the repairing phase was laying down collagen left right and centre and not in the true line of the tendon. You'll end up with lumpy portions of tendon. These lumpy portions are also a lot less tolerant to strain than a well healed tendon. it's like the effect of bluetack between the damaged ends of the tendon compared to a piece of sticky tape laid lengthways along it. The stickytape will stretch a lot before coming undone, while the bluetack will pop undone with a lot less force. During this phase you can start to increase the load that the tendon carries - so long as the first two phases were managed well. This is when the horse can technically start back into work, but again I stress - "if the first two phases were well managed!".... this is why it's often much more beneficial to have the horse turned out for a few months to resume normal horsey behaviour as the longer healing time will give the tendon the biggest chance of being as strong as possible.

Anyway, this was a bit long winded and my apologies for that, but i thought it might help to understand WHY heat or cold is applied at different times, and why it is sometimes a wise thing not to put the horse back in work too soon.

Sam.

P.S - I should emphasise that this is all 'in theory' - Your Vet or other practitioner (if you're keen try a horse osteopath if you have them there yet? If not i'll be there in a years time!) is really the best advisor as they have the individual horse in front of them... there is no way you can know for sure the best treatment option simply by time from injury on a forum like this - so all this theory is just that - theory.