Is it time to change the title of this thead to one about joint injections ? 
am going to have our pony’s hocks injected tomorrow… a question though, she will not abide stall rest… is that a necessary? I will obviously ask vet tomorrow but curious if anyone else has just been able to turnout afterwards. she will pace in her stall and do more harm than good if she’s in.
For infection reasons and to let the injections settle, I have always seen vets recommend at least a day or two of stall rest. The last thing you want to do is get infection in a joint!
My vet never recommends stall rest. She always recommends the normal routine sans riding for a week or so, then start back with light riding and work up over a few days.
Infection should not be an issue post-injection simply from the environment. In fact, a stall is likely to be dirtier and riskier than being out, depending on each situation of course. It’s just so much easier for the horse to lay down on a pile of poop on his stall than he’s likely to do outside.
If the injection is going to set up an infection in the joint, it’s going to do that regardless of the horse in or out.
[QUOTE=JB;6767922]
My vet never recommends stall rest. She always recommends the normal routine sans riding for a week or so, then start back with light riding and work up over a few days.
Infection should not be an issue post-injection simply from the environment. In fact, a stall is likely to be dirtier and riskier than being out, depending on each situation of course. It’s just so much easier for the horse to lay down on a pile of poop on his stall than he’s likely to do outside.
If the injection is going to set up an infection in the joint, it’s going to do that regardless of the horse in or out.[/QUOTE]
That’s what I have always been told, from 4 or more different vets. Same reason they don’t like you to use that sedation opportunity to clean the sheath-- the idea is to keep the injection site as clean as possible and expose it to as little bacteria as you can. I know things like staph etc. can live outside in the ground. Although there’s poop in the stall, a cleanly beeded stall should have a more controlled enviornment than a turnout pasture.
I’m not sure why “they” don’t want you to clean the sheath of a sedated horse, or what that has to do with hock injection cleanliness or infection 
Cleaning a sheath and penis properly means things are dropped, just as if he was peeing. You clean, you remove the cleaner as appropriate, and you’re done. You’re not breaking any skin barriers and you certainly aren’t injecting anything.
Stalls generally aren’t cleaned overnight, so that’s 10-12 hours of pooping and peeing and laying on it, unless you happen to have a horse who does all his business on one end and lays on the other
My horses live out. It’s very, very rare for one of them to lay on a poop pile. But just one night inside, and it’s on hocks, knees, sometimes even the face, often the hips.
Take the situation into account, that’s really the message. I totally get “stall rest” for the horse whose turnout situation is a muddy 1/2 acre paddock. I don’t get it for the horse whose turnout is 8 acres of grass.
thanks guys, I will speak to the vet tomorrow. She doesn’t typically lay in poop outside for sure but trainer has meds on if we need to sedate her to keep her in.
They=my vets. Sorry, I thought that was clear from the context of the conversation/preceeding sentence.
They don’t want any additional risk of smegma/dirt getting on/near the injection site.
Where I board, stall rest horses have their stalls cleaned more frequently.
I’ve never seen a vet say “turn a horse out” right after injections. Clearly YMMV.
Oh, they don’t want to use the sedation for the joint injection as an opportunity to clean the sheath - yes, I get that now, sorry
and yes, the reason I first replied was that my vet doesn’t recommend stall rest right after the injection, which is different from your “I’ve never seen recommended…” experience If the horse is already in and is supposed to be in for other reasons, then keep him in, then turn him out at the next scheduled time. But if he’s on full time turnout, then keep him as normal to allow for sedation to wear off to the point of being safe to turn back out. It’s what she’s always done and rarely, rarely has any complications. But, she’s also extremely fanatical about scrubbing the site beforehand too.
[QUOTE=vxf111;6768097]
They=my vets. Sorry, I thought that was clear from the context of the conversation/preceeding sentence.
They don’t want any additional risk of smegma/dirt getting on/near the injection site.
Where I board, stall rest horses have their stalls cleaned more frequently.
I’ve never seen a vet say “turn a horse out” right after injections. Clearly YMMV.[/QUOTE]
My vets have all said the same thing as yours over the years.
[QUOTE=vxf111;6767881]
For infection reasons and to let the injections settle, I have always seen vets recommend at least a day or two of stall rest. The last thing you want to do is get infection in a joint![/QUOTE]
My vet told me to keep my horse in until the sedation wore off then to let him out (he lived out 24/7).
It’s been awhile now since I had injections done, but I think my horse got a day or two off, a couple of days of light riding and then back to work.
Hock injections are not maintenance if you do NOT have an issue. Maintenance would be prevention options like glucosamine supplementation and petozan and proper work, ie having easy days where not much turning, no galloping, cantering, and no hard collection to give the joints a break.
Over time injections do wear on the joint. If you do have a problem with joints I would inject. If problems are already there it is important to inject because it keeps them comfortable.
I have 2 horses. One is 21 and moving off behind, he had his hock injected after flexion which should arthritic hocks. He is due for injections again, but instead we are trying a combination of previcox, petozan, and glucosamine. Overall they were looking okay so I decided to take a cheaper approach since his work load is decreased.
We injected my other horse’s hocks after poor guidance from a different vet. It did nothing! Because he had no issues, his issues were in his front legs and his back legs were just covering it up.
Horse dead lame in the hind end. Had vet out and xrayed as having some hock arthritis. Injected the horse, and horse came 100% sound and went back to jumping no problem. Injections lasted about a year before needing to be done again.
For a younger sport horse that needs a joint injection I have had good results with IRAP (which is actually healing to the cartilage, rather than potentially harmful like corticosteroids). There is a new generation of autologous blood treatments called “ProStride” - it was “N-stride” last year - it’s supposed to be much better than IRAP as it has anti-inflammatory blood factors as well as growth and healing factors in it. It’s worth asking your vet about these treatments versus corticosteroid injections. They are not as powerful for pain relief or inflammation relief, but over the long haul are better for the joint. That being said, for older horses or ones with quite a bit of synovitis then corticosteroids can break up the pain and inflammation cycle very well.
I thought I was going to have to go the injection route. 15 y/o appy doing training/1st. On the suggestion of my trainer, we put him in shoes all around in mid-summer (he was barefoot before that). He was good for the first set but needed some tweaking as he was forging pretty bad (shoes actually helped him to increase his stride). So the second set came with some tweaks of angle. This helped him with the forging issue, but I think also aggravated some underlying back-end issues that we have been trying to manage through work, bodywork, chiro, and supplements.
I had one of the best lameness vets in our area out to evaluate and yeah, he is sore in both hocks and the right front fetlock (we think due to him trying to compensate for his hocks). I am almost through my first month of Previcox and he seems to be doing much better. We may eventually have to progress on to joint injections, but the levels of treatment offered to me were:
- Previcox…if that doesn’t work (or stops working)
- Pentosan…if that doesn’t work (or stops working)
- Inject the joint
So, the Spotted Wonder now gets Cosequin daily with morning feed, his Previcox-laced apple chunk with his evening feed, and is staying on his 24/7/365 turnout regimen. Oh, and I was told that I need to ride more often during the winter 
(it will be a challenge with no lights and an outdoor grass arena, but we will try!)
