Very similar!! I guess I should be thankful that the stifle injury was pretty clear since there is a little bit of swelling. The feet snuck up on us though.
I hope your guy goes well with shoes!! I am also looking into getting the equi band. Glad to hear you like it. Is it easy to use and attach?
I’m not the person you’re asking but will add that I just got an equiband (at the vet’s suggestion) and I’m pretty surprised how well my horse goes in it. I’ve always sorta avoided a lot of lunging unless feeling really lazy as I can always ride her in a better posture than she goes lunging (i.e., with lunging she’s more braced in the neck, transitions are on the forehand and awful, etc). With the equiband she was noticeably more uphill on the lunge than I’d ever seen her before. So I’m sold on it as a very useful way to lunge in a meaningful way as a break from riding but still provide a good conditioning day.
I found it quite easy to understand how to adjust, but I have to take my gloves off to move the little sliders as they are physically a little annoying (but I’ve gotten a good technique down now, I think). Otherwise it’s pretty easy to use. Just start somewhat loose and work your way up. I’m not 100% yet on how tight I can/should get it, but I’m just going slowly and seeing if maybe the horse will tell me when it’s too much. There are several videos online, too.
If you can swing it, see if you can get an ultrasound as a baseline. It’s more for treatment at this point, because if you’re dealing with a strain versus mild inflammation, you’d have a very different approach. Stifles are so difficult to rehab well that it’s almost always better to know 100% what you’re dealing with.
It may be the feet are the root of the issue. Hooves only flare if the trim isn’t correct, it’s the hoof’s way of correcting the angles – eventually the distortion will chip off and wear down if the horse is left to natural devices and moves around on varying terrain. Obviously in sport horses that never happens, but getting the feet under control will give you a leg up in dealing with the stifle injury.
My general protocol with stifle (ligament strains) is shoes all around. They often need the hind end support of a hind shoe – for a few reasons. One, because their bad trim got them there in the first place and a new farrier + shoes is sometimes the best short term “fix” to get the angles right – and two, because they are usually footsore behind, stand under themselves to protect their stifle, and move compensate to protect their stifle – which strains the SI, hock, and to an extent, even their lower limb. So putting that shoe on usually gives them a little break and helps support them while they unlearn all that postural protectiveness.
I also am a big fan of estrone during the rehab. Avoid any lunging or circles, and keep cantering to a minimum. I like pole work (8 poles in a row) once the horse is cleared to go back to work. Start with two poles, go over them every revolution around the ring. Each week, add a pole. I prefer doing walk over trot, simply because they are usually not in shape after the healing.
And 24/7 turnout. It’s the best thing for them once they’re healed and strong enough for unrestricted movement.
Just to be clear, I’ve been asking for an ultrasound since June! The fact that it hasn’t been ultrasound is not because I haven’t wanted it or because of the money. The vets have honestly just told me it’s a waste if my money and that it isn’t serious enough and that must work he has obviously improved which kind of tells them what they need. That being said my actual own personal vet will be coming out in October and she might be more willing to appease me and my paranoia. Lol I’m totally in agreement about the ultrasound…
He lives outside 24/7. I definitely agree that the foot is not helping us. My other farrier had only trimmed him three times and he had the flare before I bought him. I will say I think it got a little wonky but is that because of the stifle or not I don’t know. We have tried to show him all the way around but because of how he’s wearing that foot he will not hold a shoe. So gluons are the next thing we will try.
He was cleared for work in July but we took things pretty slowly. Right now he only feels better and better but I still would feel better having my own vet out to kind of see with her own eyes.
I will definitely check out the equiband!
@beowulf also, we did PRP. Would you still recommend estrone?
He is doing so well. Could the PRP be covering up how far it actually is in feeling well? Masking it?
I’m definitely paranoid but at the same time he really has improved so that makes me hopefully we are doing a few things right. Still need those hind shoes though. We have a new farrier. But he also said there is no way to get a traditional shoe on that right hind right now. He was pretty complimentary for my old farrier. Not to say that he’s not trying to take a few things but he said that he seemed like he’s doing a good job.
I think it’s chicken or the egg. Because he can be a bit draggy with his hind at times, it ruins that foot even more. And like you said, we need that foot to support the stifle. It’s a bugger.
PRP can mask slight pain but it sounds like you’ve done everything right so far.
I like the estrone because combined with a good rehab protocol, it helps put a bit of a “buffer” on the pain, and also helps strengthen the ligaments and muscle tissue. When I’ve worked with rehabbed horses, my vet usually does a multi-pronged approach of pain management and body management, because it is just as much about unlearning the pain responses and postures as it is about conditioning the body.
I will ask my vet about it.
The bodyworkers (the chiropractor is a vet too) were all pretty pleased with how he felt. His biggest trouble spot for the massage was actually his shoulders and his pole/neck. I think maybe when he was in training one of the saddles they used was not fitting 
And he still doesn’t have an actual saddle as I kept having to reschedule it because of the lost hind shoe! Gah. She comes in the middle of October thankfully.
Chiropractor thought he felt really good overall. Just a few tight spots but nothing alarming. She also gave me a couple ideas of exercise for rehab too.
Estrone is for ligament laxity issues like upward fixation. For an acute injury I’d be more likely to use something like IRAP or ProStride. The latter have anti-inflammatory and healing properties, blocking inflammatory proteins.
Hooves can flare unilaterally due to uneven loading of the foot. One side of the foot becomes more upright while the other side flares. That can come from up above as much as from the trim itself. If you correct the gait it will be easier to fix the flare, versus managing it, with trimming. Why do they think this is coming from the fetlock? What is wrong with the fetlock?
Well we did PRP. I will talk to my personal vet, but with him steadily improving I don’t want to start injecting it with everything yet unless we really need to do it.
He has a scar on the inside of his fetlock on that foot and CSU told me they think it’s simple thickened on the inside and slightly asymmetrical so encourages it to flare to the outside. We do have clean x-rays on it. Although occasionally it will stock up a little. But again every time I’ve mentioned it to every vet nobody is concerned at all about that either.
Regardless I do think the focus here is the stifle and that foot. I definitely think they go hand in hand at this point for sure!
Estrone is commonly administered for acute stifle injuries here. In my past professional life, I was administering it to horses on layup for acute stifle injuries that were starting ridden work. Last time I used it on a personal horse of mine, it was for a horse with a medial collateral ligament tear to his stifle that was in the rehab phase. He never had any stifle slipping.
I also had it prescribed for a horse with an SI tear and mild inflammation in the stifle. No UFP in that case either.
In both situations, I think it helped.
It’s got quite a few different uses.
I will keep both Estrone/IRAP in mind. But at this point I feel like we are on a good projectory with the stifle and that more attention needs to be turned back to the feet. I know both go hand in hand so I’m not ignoring one or the other it’s just circumstances of what we were able to deal with first.
Sorry, but I don’t see how estrone, a hormone, would heal a medial collateral tear itself or be anti-inflammatory treatment for a clearly swollen stifle like OP’s horse.
Estrogen is pretty well studied in being beneficial towards healing.
Estrone is used therapeutically in conjunction with appropriate work and other treatments. Its not an either/or treatment. 
In of itself it is not a miracle fixer, and I definitely wouldn’t only use estrone and expect a brilliant recovery.
Rehab is not just stall time plus time put back to work. It is comprised of many different steps as the body goes through the trauma and subsequent recovery that is acute injury, condition loss, and reconditioning/recovery: it has a thousand little parts – one part time off, one part healing, one part unlearning ‘destructive’ muscle memory, one part reconditioning the body and new (correct) muscle as old muscle memory dies off, one part correct conditioning work to improve stability or muscle memory, and one part management (or many).
Here is how it was explained to me by the vet, although it’s been years and some things may not be remembered faithfully: Estrone (estrogen) helps with muscle building and improving collagen in connective tissue. It is anabolic (assists in the building of new muscle tissue) and helps mildly with stiffness associated with inflammation. It’s a hormone, so it has a significant behavioral component and is especially useful in behavioral cases – with unlearning pain responses while introducing correct work.
This is, IMHO, the real reason estrone is used for rehab cases – it helps the horse be more tractable in correct work. If the horse is still in pain, or still compensating because of muscle memory, or untractable because of pain memory, you end up back at square one because without ever unlearning the compensational habits of the horse, you continue to put strain on the injured area.
In rehab, the horse has to learn to use their body in a way they have never had to before (or for a long time) – doing these body building exercises after months off in a stall is hard. It can be painful. Estrone helps keep them more relaxed while helping physically to build correct muscle.
Besides all that, it has virtually no negative side effects and it’s dirt cheap. It’s used a lot in my area (Area 1) with positive results. 
Estrone is very mildly anabolic in comparison to other anabolic steroids. It can have a behavioral effect, and if you have bad behavior to get over to get on the right path to recovery, that can be a big piece of the puzzle for sure. But you said it buffers pain, which I don’t think is entirely accurate, when discussing in contrast to other therapeutics that are primarily anti-inflammatory in nature. It could enhance the effects of glucocorticoids if you’re using corticosteroids as another part of the treatment. Overall, estrone is a fairly outdated therapy, since it didn’t ever tend to help THAT much with upward fixation and there are some better alternatives for anti-inflammatory therapy and promoting healing and the right kind of new cell generation. Proper reconditioning is always important too and may have given you all the good results you saw without the estrone.
The equiband is very easy. The first use you have to adjust it a little to get the right amount of tension on it…and to be honest, I’m not sure mine is “right” but the horse tolerates it and it seems nice and snug to me. Once you’ve got it adjusted, it’s just a matter of snapping the two bands into place (comes with a special saddle pad with snaps) and off you go.
I rode bareback today, so no equibands. Horse felt good at the walk. He was reluctant to trot, but he usually is bareback…I swear he’s worried I’m about to fall off…and he’s probably right, LOL! Usually I just “jog” a little and then go ahead and canter. Well he was unusually stubborn about it and I kept asking and asking and eventually when he started to pick it up, next thing I know his head is down to his knees and he’s humping his back! This is a horse that never bucks. So, I stopped that nonsense. Went into the arena (we had been out in the field) and we cantered in there and he just felt so heavy hitting the ground and like he didn’t want to stay in the canter. We went back into the field and tried again and he was better about it, but still not thrilled. Turned around and went to the right and he cantered right off…which is odd because that’s usually the way he’s stickier about picking up the canter.
Tomorrow I’ll lunge in the equibands out in the field to see what’s going on.
Horses. I tell ya. It’s always something.
Horses!! Hmm hopefully next time goes much better.
Tonight I did some tail pulls. I started on the right side, which is the injured side. Then I went to go do the other side and he was quite pissy about it. So it was a bit intense. I think I will try it first on the good side and only do two sets.
We worked in hand a bit and he was much more responsive as far as going forward. Because even in hand he’s really pokey if you let him! I think it’s just about being consistent. Although I’m so curious how he’ll be once we finally get a hind shoe on. And a fitted saddle!!
I think the instructions for the equibands say to start snug but not tight and then as the horse gets used to them, they should be adjusted to 50% stretch. Like, if your distance from buckle to buckle measures 60 inches, you need to stretch 30 inches of bands to that distance. To me, that is way too tight. And on some conformation types, too tight with the rear band can mean it’s sliding up right under the tail, which many horses do not love. I wind up adjusting it to some point where there’s no visible slack when the horse moves but it feels kind of like snug girth tight.
For the belly band, too loose means it can slide back like a bucking strap, and for this one I tend to go tighter. 1) because your horse might be puffed out when you first put it on, but it’s not easy to adjust once on like your girth, and 2) since it sits farther back, once horse does engage its core, that portion becomes relatively more tucked up than the girth groove area since you have no sternum back there.
If I’m understanding you correctly, then I think this is incorrect (and I get it because the instructions are pretty unclear and confusing). What the instructions (I think) want you to do is:
For example, and I’m just making up numbers here, but if the initial snugness in Step 1 is 90 inches, and the maximum stretch in Step 3 is 120 inches, then the right snugness will be 60 inches (unstretched).
I say “three people” because I cannot fathom how to stretch it to its max by myself, much less measure how long that is with only my two arms. But it’s an imperfect system anyway because how far you can stretch it to the max depends on how strong the two people are. 
But, as I said, the instructions are confusing, and I would love to be corrected.
Yes, you are totally right that it’s kind of impossible to do that method yourself. So I read the alternate instructions:
Using the tape measure supplied, measure the distance between the two clips on the pad (between left and right sides: either along the hindquarter region or under the abdomen). The clips on the actual band can then be measured at no less than half of the distance apart. For example, if the distance between the two clips on the pad (left to right side) is 1.00m, the clips on the band should be no less than 50cm apart.
So, it does say, no less than 1/2 the distance, but 1/2 the distance in my experience is still really too tight, especially for the hindquarter band.
I love the way you described the process! Thank you for that! (In the conditioning phase ourselves. Sorry to hijack the thread 
.)
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