Look for experiences and opinions! I know a handful of members ( warmbloodmom, bea, plumcreek) have had this done on their horses but the most recent / most helpful thread is over 10 years old. I’m wondering if you all would still recommend it? Looks like the closest known surgeon to me who does it is Wisconsin Equine Clinic, although I need to call some local vet hospitals on Tuesday. I’m looking to have it done on a 13 yr old OTTB mare who is used for 1.0-1.1 meter jumpers. She is a Saint but has recently been throwing on the brakes at jumps (1 out of every 25-30 jumps?) and is short strides behind. If it is still something that is being done successfully and is not overly expensive (looked like $800 for both legs when warmbloodmom had her horse done? Or maybe I’m confused) then I certainly want to consider it. It sounds to be a way better alternative than IA joint injections and after having them myself I do not want to subject my horse to that! I get that CT may not fix everything but I am thinking that + pentosan + msm/ actiflex 4000 should make a decent difference!
I have no advice on the procedure you’re asking about but since you mentioned calling more hospitals, I want to offer a major recommendation for the University of Wisconsin Madison Vet school.
https://uwveterinarycare.wisc.edu/
They treated my horse for cancer seven years ago … for what we thought was going to be terminal. He’s still alive today. And for each visit, I was actually surprised at how low the bills were. But more importantly, I felt like he got excellent care and was literally our “only hope” after seeing several local area veterinarians.
random stopping can also indicate hind suspensory issues, have those been ruled out?
I don’t see why I would go to a soft tissue first when jumpers are notorious for needing hock maintenance for obvious reasons. I would think if it were a suspensory issue she would be lame or have swelling or be off which she is not. It is not just stopping that makes me think hocks, and vet agrees it is hocks. I am not looking for diagnostics I am looking for experience with this particular surgery please.
Sorry, no need to get angry. We used to call cunean tenectomy “cutting the jacks”. I recall it helped a couple, mostly didn’t help or hurt. I wish you the best of luck getting your horse’s resolved.
Mroades- I apologize, I did not mean to come off as angry! I know there is a somewhat “new and improved” version where instead of simply cutting the tendon they actually break up scar tissue and remove a section of it. I am hoping to call the vet clinic in Colorado that specializes (?) in it tomorrow to get more information.
It’s all good, was just relaying my personal experiences. Hoping you get your horse feeling better no matter how!!!
What diagnostics have you done? Proximal suspensory issues will show a positive flexion for hocks. With bilateral proximal suspensory issue, they may not appear lame, just “short strided”, and there may not be noticeable swelling for a chronic overuse injury. Have you done Xray? Nerve blocks? Do you see bone spavin in the hocks? My understanding is that CT is a procedure mostly for bone spavin affecting the lower joints versus other types of arthritic changes unless the targeted bursa is the only thing affected by whatever other pathology is going on. Why do you want to do surgery as your first treatment over IA injections? If you think an IA injection is uncomfortable (and I’ve had them…they are), why would surgically cutting a tendon over the joint not be?
The Merck Vet Manual has this to say bout CT - “Cunean tenectomy may result in a temporary improvement in lameness but is unlikely to restore soundness. It is believed to reduce the pressure over the medial aspect of the distal tarsus and cunean bursa and to reduce the rotational and shear stress over these joints during contraction of the tibialis cranialis muscle.”
Are you referring to the “improved” version which is the one in question? Where they don’t just cut the tend but actually remove a section and break up any existing scar tissue.
My concern with IA injections isn’t that they are uncomfortable - duh they are. It’s that they further the damage that is there and are a bandaid solution to a long lasting problem. I have had them myself and am worse off for doing so and therefore won’t subject my horse to them.
Again, why would you think suspensory issues when hocks are the more obvious answer? And vet agrees hocks? If I get nothing from treating hocks then I can look at suspensories but honestly she is not THAT sore. My experience with tendon damage is heat, swelling and lameness which she has none of. She is short strides with very little hock action where she previously had more.
If you haven’t done any imaging that shows degeneration of the joint, then hocks are not necessarily the more obvious answer. Do you know there is scar tissue on that tendon? Is there a bone spur there? There are steroids that have been proven to cause further joint degeneration over time. There are other steroids which are pretty effective that are not proven to do so. There’s also HA and IA Adequan. And, there are biologics which reduce inflammation such as IRAP which also do not cause further damage. There’s no clinical proof that I could find that CT provides a long-lasting solution. What is going to keep that area of the tendon that is cleaned up from scarring again?
Proximal suspensory desmitis is a common injury to sport horses. Lameness can be very mild and hard to detect if bilateral and the condition is chronic and caught early, in which case it looks like loss of limb action (or being short strided). A block on one limb may make the lameness more obvious on the unblocked limb. It can cause the stopping behavior you describe. They may or may not be painful on palpation and may cause a positive hock flexion.
There are also a bunch of other reasons there may be abnormal movement on the cranial part of the stride (when the hock has to flex) in the stifle or upper limb or pelvis, but I’ll take your word for it that it was hock lameness, possibly confirmed by flexion tests. It’s easier to take an educated guess at one problem or the other through Xray of the hock and nerve blocks. They may also respond positively to IA injection of the hock, but only temporarily. In any case, bilateral lameness is often a reason to look a little harder at nailing down the cause.
If you said, we looked at the hocks and found bilateral spurs or osteoarthritis of whatever form (joint space narrowing, effusion, OCD), then the hocks would be “obvious”. From the information you have provided in your written description, it’s not exactly obvious.
Did your vet who diagnosed hock pain recommend CT surgery on both hind limbs? If so, I’m curious to know why if no bone spavin was imaged.
This, umpteen kazillion times. Unless there were a lot of diagnostics done, that OP did not share with us, then I agree on recommending more diagnostics. Never rule out soft tissue problems without actually doing the diagnostics to look for them!
It could be that this horse NEEDS TO STOP JUMPING??? I am sure OP is hoping that is not the case, but seriously, if the horse is either injured, or suffering from a degenerative condition, and if that is worsened by jumping, the solution becomes clear, and it is not surgery, IMO.
My 19 year old gelding had a CT at 8 years, when slight lower joint arthritic changes first showed up on X-ray, without lameness. As I had such success with CT on previous horses, I went ahead and did the surgery on him as a preventative against the arthritis progressing. I have never radiographed his hocks since, as he has never had the slightest loss of spring in his hocks. This despite his repeated attempts to destroy every other part of his body. His hocks are the only reliably sound area he has left. None of my horses that had a CT, for various beginning indications of hock problems, ever had hock issues again. My friend’s gelding, who’s hocks showed arthritic changes enough to halt a PPE, and were causing him pain, went on to a long hunter career after his CT, and he definitely was not the stoic type. .
As in the above posts, my vet recommends a CT as a preventative when there is evidence that the hocks are or will soon become a source of pain – start of joint surface roughness, narrowing of the joint space, bone spurs where the tendon crosses, or sore backs and/or hip muscles combined with very straight hind legs. This combination can indicate a tendon/bursa very tight against the joint, becoming inflamed and scarring down to the joint surface, with maybe no radiograph joint changes yet. One of my horses had the sore back and straight hind legs with progressively narrowing joint space, and the tight tendon made a ‘twang’ noise when it was cut. In his case, joint injections would not have helped at all.
Post CT, as my vet does them, the tendon will not cause problems again as it has a long enough section removed to not grow back together and will not scar down as it is no longer tight against the joint. Not the case with the old method of just cutting the tendons. However, her post surgery caveat is : If the horse is not lightly exercised at all 3 gaits (only hand walked) or asked to do collected gaits, excess surgery site inflammation could possibly cause a tendon bursa to form new scar tissue
My old thread about CTs, with more background info, resides somewhere in the Forums Reference section.
