Has anyone had a horse successfully recover from a front SDFT tear behind the knee?
One would expect this to heal adequately, depending of course on the extent of the original tear, partial to fully torn apart. And depending on the expectation of the amount of work that will be required of the horse in the future. Tendons usually heal. Ligaments, not so much. Low bows heal, high bows heal. The vet that diagnosed the tear should have the best input on this for you. How strong the healed tendon will be is the question, and will it be strong enough to do what you want to do with the horse. Aldoniti went into training to win the Grand National with a pre existing healed bowed tendon. Nothing is impossible. Good luck!
My horse has one right now. I’ve been dealing with this for over a month and it doesn’t seem to be getting a lot better. Still hot and swollen. He hates being wrapped and tears off the wraps every day/night, even smeared with cayenne papper paste on the wraps. I am icing it, giving bute, wrapping (when I can). I need some advice as to how to get the heat out of this. wrapping seems to just keep the heat, which seems opposite of what should be done. I am interested in pursuing DMSO treatment, but don’t know much about it. This is very frustrating.
[QUOTE=blueribbonpanel;8439629]
My horse has one right now. I’ve been dealing with this for over a month and it doesn’t seem to be getting a lot better. Still hot and swollen. He hates being wrapped and tears off the wraps every day/night, even smeared with cayenne papper paste on the wraps. I am icing it, giving bute, wrapping (when I can). I need some advice as to how to get the heat out of this. wrapping seems to just keep the heat, which seems opposite of what should be done. I am interested in pursuing DMSO treatment, but don’t know much about it. This is very frustrating.[/QUOTE]
You can try a furacin/DMSO sweat bandage for a couple of days. Use rolled cotton, Vetrap, and liberal use of Elastikon at the bottom to keep your horse from eating the wrap. That might help you get to a point where the icing is doing more good.
Thank you for your help.
I was just reading about dmso and it says it heats up the area where it is applied. With a sweat using DMSO, then covered with all those wraps, wont it cause even more heat, which is probably not what I want, since the leg is already very hot? My vet told me to apply the furacin sweat also which I do sometimes, but not a alot. It seems to cause a scurf on his leg, since his hair was clipped short to do the ultrasound. I am really confused. Heat? Cold? What?
Thank you for any helpful comments.
Furacin if used too frequently can cause skin irritation for sure. I think a combo of furacin/DMSO is more effective as a sweat. You can use it just overnight or you can make the bandage I described and leave for a couple of days, provided the wrap stays in good shape. Considering your horse removes his standing wraps, I would use the cotton/tape method versus the saran wrap under a standing bandage method for shorter term use.
It will create some heat, yes, (so does furacin alone) but the goal is to draw out all the extra fluid in the tendon sheath. Then, you may be able to have decent results by returning to cold hosing, icing, etc.
You can also try injecting IRAP to bring down the inflammation, though this is expensive and needs to be done on a weekly basis for a few weeks.
