Hi all, I’m looking for so insight on stifle injuries and their outcome.
I have a 20 yr old gelding with significant meniscus tears, inflammation and some arthritis. He is currently not putting weight on it when stalled but will walk on it for some grass. He has been injected 2x and on stall rest for 2 months.
He seemed to be coming along but unfortunately he is a stall walker and had a circle in his stall one morning and after that went downhill.
I have been given some expensive options in treatment with no guarantees of course.
My concern is putting the time and money in and ending up right where we are.
Please share your thoughts and experiences with this type of injury. He is being the best boy so far and he deserves a better life. Thanks!!
In my experience… it only gets worse. And in the end, you have a tough decision to make. But in that situation, there is only one decision. Sorry.
Stifles do much better when the horse is out on a field, not on stall rest. Have you discussed that option with your vet? Is he comfortable in pasture?
I agree with NancyM. There’s not much that will help. I had a gelding that was diagnosed with torn meniscus and arthritis in his left stifle at age 19. I had him on daily previcox, which helped for a while until it no longer did. I also tried the bute-less pellets and devils claw, both of which helped for a while then stopped. He was turned out in a large pasture 24/7 and stayed pretty mobile. But as time went on his right fetlock started dropping from bearing the extra weight as he tried to relieve the pain on his left stifle. Eventually his right pastern was parallel to the ground and his hock straight as a fence post. It got to where he was clearly uncomfortable just walking around the pasture and I had him put down at age 25. In all honesty I probably waited too long to make that final decision.
I’m rehabbing a similar injury right now.
Mare has access to paddock and pasture 24/7 but sometimes puts herself on stall rest, especially in the early stages.
Stifles can take a year or more to
Get better.
The best thing I’ve found is
Smartflex Rehab Pellets.
A real game changer for comfort,
Healing and swelling.
It has many great ingredients.
Also we use a good Vit
/min. Supp. Mad Barn Amino Trace +.
These injuries take time to heal.
Yes. The stall rest and injections were the direction of vet at New Bolton. He will walk but when stopped the foot is rested/ non weight bearing.
I’m obviously not New Bolton, but since he has already done 2 months of stall rest, could you ask them about the possibility of him being out on pasture? I think for an older horse if we are talking about quality of life, having them on stall rest indefinitely is not a very good quality of life. If he is able to be out and is comfortable moving at his own pace and grazing that is a different story.
My horse has had stifle issues her entire life, and while the acute injury was not non-weight-bearing, she was 4/5. She was rehabbing from a front-end ligament injury at the time and was already on 24/7 turnout. We continued walking for another 3 months and she is back in full work including jumping small jumps. She is now 21, she was 17 when she became acutely lame on the stifle. She did not have any period of stall rest and has yearly PRP injections in the stifle.
Mine was almost 21 (Jan 2019) when he tore his meniscus. His other health conditions precluded stall rest, and he was out in a smaller paddock with one friend. It took six months. The first ultrasound was 5-6 weeks after the original injury, and the recheck ultrasound at two months showed a tiny bit of healing. The next two month recheck showed some good healing, but not completely. The final ultrasound two months later showed the tear had healed.
Rehab was slow. When I finally started canter my Equestic told me it was too much, and I left it for a couple more weeks.
He healed and we had many adventures, trailering out and riding in various places until he injured the same stifle three years later (September 2022). That injury was looking really good the following April (2023), and then he reinjured it again after a huge amount of rain that turned his paddock into sucking mud. That was followed by progress, setback, other lameness causing issues that hid how the stifle was doing, until we got the assessment that it was as healed as it was going to get and would benefit from strengthening in August (2024).
He’s still uncomfortable on unstable footing (though it seems less so now than a couple of months ago) and we’re doing maybe 5-7 minutes total trot in an hour ride. I am thrilled to be able to do mostly walk with a little bit of trot trail rides on decent footing with my 26 year old horse, even if I have to keep in mind that his stifle is fragile. There were many times in the last two years when I was wondering if I was going to have to give up entirely.
In your place I wouldn’t give up yet. This kind of injury takes time - a lot of time. I would try to have him out in a small area if he’s reasonably sensible in turnout. A horse in a stall with one 20’ wall (20’ by 10’ or 12’) moves five times as much as one in a regular sized stall. Even a small paddock or large outside stall will be better for his body.
I set each milestone, recheck date, and did my best to not think about it, and not assess progress more than once a week (I did an in hand trot so the Equestic could assess his trot symmetry). It’s not the easiest thing to do. I kept doing our near daily hand walks, grooming, and that sort of thing one day at a time.
My 16-ish year old had a meniscus injury (the technical term the vet used was that it looked “funky”). We did two rounds of ProStride, and each time the protocol was 5 days of stall rest post-injection, then turnout in a smaller, quiet pasture. He eventually got to “light riding soundness” but is now comfortably retired. He marches around his rolling pasture and is a great buddy to my riding horse. I personally wouldn’t be happy about having to keep an older horse on stall rest, especially if they are used to living out.
Heh. Mine said “shredded.” 
Ugg, stifle issues downright stink.
Even worse on an older horse (like people, older horses don’t heal as fast from injuries as younger comparisons).
I have no specific advice for you. Can you get your hands on a PEMF system? Now, it wasn’t a stifle, but I’ve had PEMF help greatly to heal various soft tissue injuries with my horses over the years, including a DDFT tear. It doesn’t magically fix everything, but I’m sure a believer for certain things on it.
And 2 months for any soft tissue injury is just a drop in the bucket. Again, not stifles, but soft tissue injuries I have had over the years with my horses were a minimum 1 year recovery, if not longer. I am very fortunate that I have lots of space and can just kick them out to pasture and give them TIME. I know that not everyone can do that.
Thanks everyone, you have given me some things to consider.
Tuesday he is getting injected with Prostride and Arthramid per another vet consult. I am hoping to just get him pasture sound and out of a stall .
I am in the same boat as you right now, so believe me, I feel for you! And yes, I can confirm that stifle injuries have me emotionally wrecked right now too. I think I would rather deal with anything else.
My horse is a 3 year old and it’s been nothing but a struggle with rehabbing his meniscus injury. I bit the bullet today and put him out in a paddock, he’s had enough of life being boxed in a stall or the arena and mentally he can’t take anymore. He stall walks too once he gets agitated. I’m just going to let him be a horse. He was looking pretty good trotting around outside, so fingers crossed he’s slowly healing. He was slightly off behind last week and then managed to lacerate the bulb of his heel 
Like you, I don’t have tons of money to dump into him…but I do have time that I can give him to see if he’ll improve. A lot of these injuries take time! Do what you can, but just keep in mind that at some point you have to draw the line sometimes.
