[QUOTE=Hawks Nest;8945170]
I should note that the initial diagnosing vet did not think that he would need such extended rest and was initially thinking that he could remain in very light work due to how minor the lameness was most of the time, and that he had not worsened with work for the entire month between the first lameness and the second. The reason for the plan of turnout for the winter was because I do not have the time to rehab him, between getting a second horse and school.
And again, if I had had time for rehab this winter, we would have gone ahead with shockwave and he would likely already be back to walking under saddle based on his last ultrasound. And without the MRI, there would have been no PRP injection etc because he did not present as severely as most horses would have for his injury. What Iām trying to say is that while his R&R is vet approved, it was not their recommendation at all post MRI.
So instead of him still being on restricted rest and doing a careful rehab under saddle I am (at this moment) watching him look for more food under the snow up in VT at his winter home with his new pasture mate (who he gets along great with). Sans shoes, his feet look good, the RF is a tiny bit misshapen but not in a way I was expecting (flared on the outside, more upright on the inside, which is how his feet tend to grow when not addressed properly, rather than flaring on the inside from trying to relieve pressure on the outside of his foot). His VT farrier (who I prefer) will be able to fix it up easily when Pizz is due next. But he is fat and happy and very very dirty.[/QUOTE]
We are in a similar boatāof course after I posted my reply, he went ahead and jogged a bit off the next time I jogged him, and so, we are humbled and reminded that time is the only thing that will truly help at this point. Understood about the mild lamenessāmy horse presented similarly mild at first, and was probably attributed to residual SDFT soreness, and he is also quite stoic, so he was worked (however lightly) through a time when he should have been rested, because none of the evaluating vets seemed to think anything was wrong enough to prohibit work. I didnāt actually ride him all that much because my gut feeling was that he should just have some time off, and he incidentally ended up getting quite a bit of stall rest thanks to a combination of unrelated factors, but then was turned out improperly and went wild and so on. IF he had been lame enough, with a savvy-enough group of people trying to figure out what was really going on with him, an MRI at that time might have given us an answer (keeping in mind that we wouldnāt have actually known where to MRI because his lameness was so variable and transient) and made him a candidate for PRP or other therapies that are beneficial in the early stages of a soft tissue injury. As it ended up, by the time we figured out what was actually going on, he was beyond the point where an elaborate therapy would have helped him, and magnetic therapy, cold laser and rest/turnout were his best options. He also lost a bit of weight (he was much too fat) thanks to moving somewhere where he was properly managed and I really do think 24/7 turnout has made the biggest difference for his various limb complaints/stiffness.
He is still a complete idiot at times but thereās nothing I can do to protect him from himself. Heās at the point in his healing where time, patience, and supportive therapies are all he has. He has been improving consistently, and even the tiny bit of āoffā that he was at the last jog was much less than the āoffā that he was after his last antics that made him lame at the walk, so, we are theoretically getting somewhere.
Even after having done your MRI/PRP and such, your horse is still basically doing what mine is doing, and whatever the reasons, I do take comfort in that. I think doing more diagnostics would only be to make me feel better, as we are doing all that we can already to make him feel better.
Interestingly, I had minor tears in two tendons in my shoulder, and it is taking forever to return to truly normal function, despite proper rest and rehab, and I remember a similar long-term sensation of abnormality healing a seriously sprained ankle. No matter what we do, these things, just by their nature, take a very long time to truly heal, and pushing the horse before they are ready is always the downfall of the healing process.
Along the lines of what MysticOakRanch said, basically. Thankfully, we are quite a ways into his year off, and since he is somewhere where thereās no indoor, the temptation to ride him over the winter is basically zero. Other horses are fine and all, but Iād rather ride my own, and Iām okay waiting to do that.
