I’m asking what anatomical strucutres might be adhered and to what specifically.
Asking abstract questions such as “would cross-fiber manipulation potentially facilitate the release of adhesions” can easily be answere with a “probably yes”.
But that’s a useless factoid if one does not know firstly that such an adhesion exists in a particular location.
You can’t say, yes, that would work without knowing if the adhesion in question was accessible to external manipulation, and that begs the question of “where”?
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The stifle joint is the largest synovial joint in the horse.
It has 3 joint compartments, 3 patellar ligaments 2 femoropatellar ligaments, a couple cruciate ligaments, a couple collateral ligaments, and 5 other ligaments associated with the medial and lateral menisci.
So the general question is far from straightforward.
It would depend on which ligament and what it was adhered to.
Yes and yes.
Great. Probably yes (depending on location and exact ligament). Do you know anyone doing it? Preferably as a profession and on multiple horses that are paying clients.
When I talk to the massage therapists I know, it’s typically along the lines of “how are things going? How’s your new horse? Have you seen so and so lately?”
Not “which ligaments have you released adhesions on lately?”
If I had a particular case in mind, I might contact them and ask if they thought they could do some good for the problem in question.
Alas, I have yet to diagnose a ligamentous adhesion in the horses in my practice.
For the third time, I’m asking if anyone is doing this work in general. Not for specific ligaments.
And 100 years ago before we were injecting joints, no vets had injected joints in their practices either. I’m certainly not trying to discount you or your experience, but this is unequivocally a thing that helped me with my joint pain. Joints are joints. Just like massage, acupuncture, and chiropractic work benefits humans and horses alike, because bodies are bodies, it stands that the type of work done on my knee could stand to benefit a horse with a similar problem. Again, I’m asking to find someone that does this in practice. If no one does, fine. But that’s why I’m asking the internet, to find out if someone does.
You brought up the stifle joint as an example.
No. they weren’t.
Because corticosteroids had not yet been discovered, much less HA or PSAG.
I’m not disputing that it didn’t help you.
I have simply never heard of ligamentous adhesions being a cuase of stifle lameness in the horse, and a quick check of the literature doesn’t bring anything up.
Massage and other forms of bodywork are excellent tools, particularly IMO for addressing compensatory patterns that develop as a result of the primary cause of a lameness.
But we have no evidence that a similar problem exists in the horse.
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Joints may be joints, but I bet you can’t hook your middle patellar ligament over the medial trochlea of your femur.
great, thanks for your input
There is a vet in my area who learned a very hard lesson by the State Vet board, and subsequent malpractice suit, that that a full diagnostic workup does in fact include xrays.
I said “without a diagnostic workup”.
For another human data point, the MD did both radiographs and ultrasound before my last corticosteroid injection.
I dunno. As an owner, I’d want x-rays if something was noticed on a flexion test. I want to see what the joint/problem area actually looks like to truly know what we’re dealing with, and perhaps have a point of reference for later. I’d feel sort of blind without that, personally.
If my vet said, “it’s the hock” after completing a flexion test, my gut feeling is to x-ray and not just go right to injecting. Sure, that’s probably what we’d end up doing anyway, but I want all of the infos. It’s entirely possible that I’m just “extra” and I’m OK with that 
@Demerara_Stables, I get the feeling that you do not know the background of the person you debating vet med stuff with.
If I wanted feedback from one person I’d ask my vet. Every person has different experiences, regardless of the number of years of experience. That’s why I asked the internet. I’m aware that this person has experience but one person’s experience isn’t the end all be all.
I guess this confirms my thought.
Hey @Ghazzu are any of the ligaments in the equine stifle even outside of the joint capsule?
I’ve had a shit ton of manual work myself, including loads of myofascial work, and find it helpful, but ligament adhesions addressed manually…? Don’t think I’ve ever heard of that? Works great for my pes anserine bursitis (in my “stifle” haha) but that’s muscle/tendon/bursa…
The 3 patellar ligaments (humans only have 1) are definitely palpable in the live horse.
The medial and lateral collateral ligaments are less distinct, but can be found.
The medial ligament is more often sprained than the lateral. Collateral ligament tears areen’t at all common, though.
Checking for lameness due to collateral ligament tears is done by manipulating the joint, but isn’t distinctive, because some horses resent the manipulation anyhow, and pain can be elicited from other structures, so it doesn’t necessarily pinpoint anything.
Another difference from humans is that the cruciate ligaments are extracapsular in the horse
They are not externally palpable, though.
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I think that massage of the muscles associated with flexion and extension of the stifle joint is more likely to benefit stifle lameness than an attempt to massage the ligaments, mainly because I doubt there is much in the way of ligamentous adhesion in that area.
The way you phrased this made me crack up laughing in a meeting where that response was not appropriate.
