I want to know everyone’s story of their horse’s treatment and recovery from a proximal suspensory lesion. I feel like I’m losing my mind because at last ultrasound my mare was “healed” and ready to be brought back to work but still takes multiple falling out steps. This has been over a year long process and I’m afraid these vets are just not willing to tell me she is a case that will never be able to return to work or the PSL may have been an incidental finding.
Every horse is different. What leg is it on? My horse had a front leg proximal suspensory injury with bone involvement. We spent a full year rehabbing. This week we just competed at Regionals after coming back into real work in April. He did trip a lot in the beginning, which is something that he never did before the injury. As he got fit, that went mostly away but I still panic when there’s an occasional stumble. I don’t know if my boy will stay sound but I’m hopeful. Just to be safe, I’m having that leg ultrasounded once a quarter from here on out to confirm nothing is getting worse, as he’ll always have an irregularity in the ligament. I hope this helps.
Maybe your girl just needs to get a little stronger. Fingers crossed that’s all it is.
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I had a horse with this and after 4 months of stall rest (with hand walking and therapeutic ultrasound), the lesion had healed but my horse was still off. This was before PRP therapies and the decision was made to do a bone marrow transfer. After the procedure, my horse had another month of stall rest and was then cleared to start rehabbing. We took it very slow and had vet checks every 4 - 6 weeks. I think it was in the 4th month of rehab that he started cantering and got to go in turnout. A few months later we started cavalletti work and very slowly built up his jumping. It was probably a year and a half after the injury that he went to a show as an AA hunter. His recovery was considered 100% and the insurance company even lifted the exclusion on that leg.
But the only way I got through the very lengthy process of his rehabbing was turning him over to a trainer to do all the riding and trot sets. He was my first horse and I had no experience with bringing a horse back from this sort of injury. I tried to do the trot sets, but I couldn’t understand why my horse was okay to do x minutes of trotting but felt so awful while doing it. I was an emotional wreck and it wasn’t until he got cleared to start canter work that I started to ride him again. My only advice is to try to understand that your horse’s strength and muscling needs to be redeveloped and built up and the process of achieving this following an injury is not smooth.
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There are several threads on here about PSD and lesions. My horse had a lesion in the LH and a year or so later inflammation in the other hind. Both times he had a neurectomy, a regenerative therapy (PRP or Prostride), shockwave, and Class IV laser. He was on stall rest for a long time and only did small medical paddock turnout for a couple hours a day. No turnout until he was cantering, which almost about 8-9 months later.
You may need to find a vet that is better at ultrasounds.
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So great to hear he is back to full work! My mare has also been tripping more which my vet also said some of what I’m feeling is also weakness. Hind limb injury unfortunately.
What did they tell you was the reason he felt off even with the lesion healed? I wish I had the funds to hand over the rehab to someone else because it is stressful. Your response was really helpful and I appreciate you taking your time to share your experience here! I am starting to think a lot of what I’m feeling may be just lack of fitness. Have her scheduled to get more shockwave and another ultrasound just in case.
The initial prognosis was a month of stall rest and then he should be good to go. After the diagnosis, I sent him to a layup place run by a retired vet that was close to the clinic where the lameness exam had been done. Every few weeks the vet would go out, re-ultrasound the injury site, and put him on a lunge line. It was watching him on the line that the vet could see he was still off even though the ultrasound showed healing. I had such an inexperienced eye at that time that I could barely see the lameness to be honest.
I needed this horse to come back 100%. I didn’t have the money to lease or buy a second horse, so I put the money it took into the layup and rehab. When we started the rehab, I think I did the first 2 weeks of trot sets (my horse was sedated every time and I wore a timer around my neck) before turning him over to the trainer. I simply couldn’t get passed how my cadillac-type horse now felt like a clunker. Where did that smooth trot go? Would I ever get it back? It DID come back, but it took months of rebuilding his muscles and strength. My trainer went with me to all of the check-ups and rode my horse for the vet so that he could be evaluated under saddle. For the first 3 months of rehab, he was sedated for every ride. Once he got the green light to go into turnout (where he basically bucked for about 5 minutes before galloping madly about with me looking on in terror) we never had to sedate him again.
Looking back, I think one of the important things I learned is that a horse coming back into work after an injury is not going to feel 100% even though the injury is healed. Putting the time in to get back to feeling good is almost a mechanical effort - set the timer for the 3 minute trot set and just trot. When the beeper goes off, walk. Rinse, repeat. Do this for maybe 2 - 3 months (per vet guidelines) and towards the end, your horse will start telling you when it’s time to move on.
Hope that helps! Good luck with it all and accept that there’s no shortcut to the amount of time it will take.
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Something I think helped my guy and other horses has been turn out. Either a medic paddock or small paddock. They lose less condition, tend to be less body sore and I’ve also started doing a lot of stretches to help my guy. 2 mo post initial find it was undetectable, we started trotting a month later and 2 weeks after that he returned to his big field. We start 15 minutes trot in a few days and I am dealing with some hock issues but he’s also coming on a year since his last hock injections and adequan injections isn’t quite enough. I noticed I had to be really mindful of his hoof care also. He’s on a strict 4 weeks otherwise we’re tripping and the leg gets very slightly puffy much easier when he’s in his stall for more than 4 hours.
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Wow what a quick recovery! Was the lesion in the hind?
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It was the front high up on a 14.2 pony (so pretty light) who is fairly upright feet wise and it looked to be from a pasture injury of just getting knocked just right. He’s also been my partner for 13 years so it was caught very quickly bc I knew it was not something minor even with how he was barely lame. He also was on collegen supplement. He had a lot working in his favor to recover so quickly and he heals exceptionally well. We did have two things working against us though. He’s 21yo and he has cushings. This played a huge roll in keeping him turned out still, just in a smaller paddock. He was extremely fit when this happened due to us planning to show first level and do some hunter paces and maybe a small eventing show so that helped with keeping his condition but we did have to have drugs on board hand walking. Pasture was fine. Hand walking the butt head was not happy not doing his normal work and was offended. He’s been much happier now that we’re trotting again thankfully.
This injury was also very tiny due to the nature of how it happened. There was simply a tiny hole, no stretch to the fibers around it so it had a very good prognosis to begin with but there’s been more research showing turn out helps it heal more uniformly. This does depend on a lot of stuff of course cause every suspensory injury is different
