4-6 month stall rest

[hail]

hi! long time lurker on here and have found useful bits from posts. figured i’d give a try and ask for advice—maybe someone has been through something similar.

my mare has an avulsion fragment from the lateral fossa of the pedal bone. in simple terms, she pulled the lateral collateral ligament out of the coffin bone and took a small piece with it. think of hammering a nail into a tree and then pulling it with a string; some tree would come with it. no ligaments were damaged, just plucked out of its place.
she should make a full recovery. we are 1 month into our 4 month stall rest (which will probably be 6 months, possibly 8) and having a very difficult time. the vet instructed to only walk her down the barn aisle on cement for stability, but recently I have been taking her in our indoor which has beautiful footing.
she is on 30 pills of 150mg trazodone and we have just begun to due 3ml of ace in the mornings before walking her in the indoor, as she has been very on edge and spooky: very unlike her, but a direct result of the stall rest. I am hopeful that after consistently walking her, she will settle.

I guess my question is: has anyone had a horse on so many meds and still not be calm? has anyone had an injury of the same type and what did your recovery plan look like?

please be kind! thank you!

[SimonSays]

Sending good vibes. Stall rest can be so hard. We had one on quarantine for a month after an illness- we did trazadone too per recommendation of the hospital, as he was very nervous about being alone. Luckily it helped him enough to keep the edge off for his month of solitary. No other advice just sending good vibes and healing thoughts your way!

[fivestrideline]

I’ve had one do well on trazodone and ace for a while, and then he started blowing through it. We tried all the calmers and drugs besides reserpine, and ended up giving up and turning him out. His suspensory looked good at that point though so it was relatively low risk to do so and he was tearing down the barn. We made it to 4 months before things started falling apart. He had a stall and a “run” for a total of 12x24 feet of space, and got 1-2 handwalks or rides for 45+ minutes a day. He still blew through it.

Stall rest is tough. I did mine at a rehab barn and highly suggest it if possible. Hopefully you will have better success than I did!

[GoodTimes]

Stall rest is tough. My mare had the summer off, on stall rest, for some significant coffin bone bruising. We didn’t do any calming supplements or sedation as she was content while in the stall, and was happy to chill and graze. Hand walks could get exciting but we weren’t really worried about reinjury in her case. After four months she was allowed to have small turnout, a couple bucks and rolls and it was like her whole brain went “ahh shh life is good again, we’re outside”. Just that 30 min to an hour of “turnout” was enough for her mentally that handwalking was no longer like flying a kite, and I had no issue starting under tack again.

[Bonnie2]

You could ask your vet about adding some dormosedan. One vet puts a measured amount of dorm into a bottle of ace so you don’t have to fuss with two shots. Also make sure you give her half an hour after the shot before you hand walk. Good luck and be careful!

[hail]

thank you so very much!

[hail]

I am lucky to have a barn manager/trainer who is working side by side with me to keep her as happy as possible. a rehab barn is a great suggestion—I didn’t even know those existed until this injury happened! thanks for the advice!

[hail]

that is wonderful to hear. it’s so difficult seeing their personality disappear but I trust it will all come back once she goes outside again. hopefully we can get her to a small turnout in another month or so—strict box stall simply doesn’t work for her! thanks for the reply…i’ll be imaging the “ahhh life is good” moment each day

[hail]

we tried reserpine and it did nothing. but I will keep this tidbit in my back pocket. she has done well with this medicine when getting teeth done. thank you!!!

[widge]

I’m guessing the 30 pills of traz are split between am/pm?
My horse had a less severe injury than yours, but was also supposed to be on stall rest with that dose of traz for several weeks/months. That didn’t work for him because he stall walks and was basically making it worse for himself than turnout. So after a few days he went to small, short term turnout and gradually built to overnight (this was during summer).
Not trying to be controversial or steer you in the wrong direction. But, sometimes stall rest just isn’t the right choice and you could consider what is best for your individual horse regardless of strictly following vet’s orders.

[RedHorses]

Check with your vet. The concrete aisle walks only order may indicate that this injury requires extremely stable and/or level footing. Sand has a degree of instability and irregularity that may be an issue.

Hopefully not.

My horse with a stifle meniscus injury was noticeably uncomfortable in the sand ring, despite being okay on the hard packed ground outside the ring. Even walking slightly slippy mud conditions were enough to affect his trot symmetry (trot done on solid ground afterwards).

[IPEsq]

With a fracture like that, I would not walk her on soft footing no matter how nice it is. And would do strict stall rest for at least a couple of months over any kind of shenanigans if she can’t be dead quiet at this stage. A shoe with a plate is sometimes used for more stability as well.

And add MagnaWave (or Pulse or similar) treatments. It did wonders for a non surgical avulsion fracture in my hand and is one therapy that can get through the hoof capsule supposedly.

[Simkie]

I had one lose her mind on trazodone. Huge increase in anxiety, she was spinning in her stall. Also had a fever. Looked every bit of serotonin syndrome, but I couldn’t find any report of it on equines.

Just to say trazodone doesn’t always work well for them all.

Eons ago, I managed a difficult horse on months of stall rest on ace. It worked well for him, and I hope it helps your mare!

[hail]

doesn’t sound controversial at all. this experience is beginning to teach me to not always listen to the vet cut and dry. thank you for your comment <3

[hail]

thank you for this input!

[hail]

I guess they really are all different! everyone I have talked to within my barn circles has said trazodone is wonderful and they only need a few pills to do the job. your post makes me feel not alone and the serotonin is interesting

[hail]

she’s got a plate on her foot but I was not sure about the magna therapy. thank you for this input—I will consider it more heavily now!

[SonnysMom]

I was going to suggest this but Sedivet instead. I have liked Sedivet for rehab. I think it is slightly longer acting than dorm or torb.
My trainer and vet both prefer active rest. Pretty much 24/7 turnout as much as possible. Round-pen, small pen, paddock. The first days, weeks may require higher meds and then taper down. The idea is they are always out so never have that OMG I am FINALLY out of my stall so I must buck, romp, and be rude.
Obviously this does not work in all circumstances.

[SonnysMom]

Some Magnawave practitioners have a smaller unit they can rent to a client. They teach the client to use it and the client uses it it a few times a week or daily.
My practitioner rented me one for 2 months to help with my husband’s fracture of his navicular bone l. Oh, the irony. He was immunocompromised, his podiatrist was impressed with how fast his stress fractures healed.

[StormyDay]

Caveat: I am NOT familiar with this specific injury.
Personally I’d ask the vet about alternative options. In recent years the efficacy of total stall rest for extended time has been brought into question. I’d ask the vet if they were in your position what they would do with their horse.