Recovery After Bone Chip Removed

[AskMyAccountant.17]

Last week my mare underwent surgery to have a large bone chip removed from her front fetlock. Surgery went well per vets, the chip was removed, and the joint was fine. Now rehab begins. We have two weeks of stall rest, then 2 weeks of some monitored small paddock turnout, and then slowly increase walking. All in all, a 60-day expected recovery time.
All of this is very doable, and my mare at Day 5 is pretty content. The mare is fully expected to come back into full work.

The vets want to come back at Day 60 for a round if IRAP and injections. Has anyone had this procedure done before? What was your experience or activity during the rehab process?

Any tips are welcome. Fully on board with my vets, but I’d love to hear any other experience

[Simkie]

How did the cartilage look?

I’ve been here a few times. One mare was never sound again because the chip had worn through the cartilage. The other had only very light grooving and was sound after removal and IRAP.

It’s been quite a few years, but your rehab schedule sounds similar and it’s great your vet is proactive with the IRAP. You realize IRAP is an injection, though, right? Is there something else that your vet want to inject at that time?

[AskMyAccountant.17]

I don’t have the vet’s comments in front of my at this second, but I want to say IRAP as well as an HA injection? This may have been my mistake in interpreting. I believe after the initial IRAP we will plan routine injections/maintenance in both fetlocks.

So yes, we were concerned about the remaining cartilage in this joint, but after the surgery my vet confirmed that cartilage was present and less damage had occurred than presumed, so the joint after removal was acceptable.
Other than the windpuffs present, the mare actually did not present lame and has been competing at a very-high level, but the mobility of the joint and excess fluid ended up causing us to look into the joint.

Are there any other treatments other than IRAP that might be prescribed during the rehab process?

[Simkie]

That all sounds like you have her recovery well in hand

We also used Surpass on the fetlock as a targeted anti-inflammatory. It worked quite nicely so may be something to speak to your vet about.

As long as the grooving in the cartilage was minor, you likely have a very excellent prognosis!

[IPEsq]

This sounds good. That’s a faster return to turnout and work than we had with my client’s horse and a chip on a hind sesamoid that was cleaned up with surgery to avoid irritation of the soft tissue. But that seemed to have been trauma related (who knows, apparently happened in the stall but there was basically no swelling just was a little off??). IRAP sounds like a good plan for this. You may want to consider Legend rather than adding HA into the joint space. My vets have stopped adding HA to joint injections for the most part because they think Legend is as effective, cost is about the same, and there’s less risk of diluting / diffusing the medication (when HA is combined with steroid or other therapeutic substances) when you are talking the smaller joint spaces like this.

Cold laser might be helpful during this initial healing time if you have access to one.