Hi,
My horse sustained a suspensory injury in his front (nothing serious) something like a mild strain, he will make a full recovery. He has been off work for the second month now.
How long did your horse stay out of work for/when did you start the rehab process?
Thanks!
My guy had a non serious suspensory injury(it was a hole most likely from a kick) that he stayed on turn out (small individual turnout). Due to him having cushings and being 20’s we were a bit more cautious with his rehab but honestly it went smooth and we were tack walking within a couple months. Returned to full work I think within 4-6 months maybe 7 before he got stuck in some deep mud here in Kentucky and did a number on his tendon. That suspensory had me woefully underprepared because of how smooth it went lol. The rehab was a bit taxing just because things take time but honestly it healed quickly and well. I also have my guy on collagen and was KT taping the area.
do you mean returned into ‘full’ work after 4-6 months? or just walk work? my horse is also on ‘small’ restricted turnout at the moment, vet prescribed another 2-3 weeks and then he’ll check him again with the ultrasound, really hoping we can get started on some walk work soon. these suspensory injuries are such annoying, long things!
So the first month-month and a half was hand walking then tack walking the second month. The third we started trotting and then added cantering and he was back out with buddies on the fourth month. By the 6-7 month we were comfortably working on reconditioning him and restrengthening. Our only hiccups were his hocks being sore from lack of work but we even went and did a hunter pace (low pace no jumping) with friends about 7 months post injury
My old OTTB had a mild strain and he stayed on turnout with a quiet buddy. He was off for about two months before starting talk walking. My vet didn’t give me a rehab plan, so I brought him back based on how he felt.
My horse had chronic bilateral proximal suspensory desmitis secondary to negative plantar angles in his hind feet, but luckily just strains/edema and no real tearing/enlargement of the ligaments because I backed off every time he seemed NQR.
He was on six weeks of stall rest with 30 minutes of daily tack walking to start, then ended up putting me in the hospital about a month in (spooked and kicked me and broke my ribs) so we made the decision with our vet to let him have small paddock solo turnout for another six(ish) weeks. He came back to work after that when both of us were cleared. We took it easy for a couple of weeks because he had 4-degree wedges added to his hind shoes and needed to adapt to them, then started ramping our work back up. It took about two or three months after that to get him back to where he had been prior to the stall rest.
All told it was probably about seven or eight months between time off (a little over three months) and then bringing him back into work very deliberately.
My horse had bilateral hind PSD. We opted to treat with Alpha2EQ and 4 rounds (every 3 weeks) of shockwave.
In 3 months, he was sound in all gaits.
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