my horse was recently diagnosed with a tear to his deep digital flexor tendon near his navicular bone using an MRI. I am doing the recommended treatment, stall rest, stem cell therapy and shock wave treatments (thank you Great American insurance). I’m looking for success stories. My horse was a training level event horse. Anyone have a horse that suffered this type of injury and returned to their previous job successfully? Let me know.
What has been done so far with shoeing to relieve the tension on the tendon ? From a therapeutic farrier’s standpoint, special shoeing would be my first line of attack (along with the stall rest)
hoof, can I ask–how did your horse manifest his injury? Working up a horse right now with a lameness in the foot, not an abscess, and feeling pretty worried about it . . . thanks. Sorry I have no help to offer.
Patty,
he had his shoes pulled for the MRI and they have not been put back on yet.
Deltawave, he originally presented quite lame on the right front. We blocked his heel and he went sound. We x-rayed the foot and found nothing. Ultrasound initially showed nothing as well. Rested him for a couple of weeks and nothing changed. Vet suggested injecting the coffin joint. 2 days later he was sound. 3 weeks later he was dead lame again. More x-rays, ultrasound and still nothing. Vet suggested MRI to try and find culprit or just go ahead and assume he had something bad and just give him the long amount of time off. Since insurance would pay for the MRI, I went that route. Tear to DDF shows clearly on the MRI. My vet can now see the tip of the tear on the ultrasound if she jams the wand down into the cleft of his heel. I guess I’m glad I know what it is. I just want to know if he can go back to his old job.
I went to the clinic in Oconomowoc, WI for the MRI. They were great there.
Thanks. Not ruling out the selfsame thing here. :sigh:
Delt with this 3 years ago
My one horse torn his DFT diagnosed therough MRI, right by the navicular. His was a strange injury as I was in the middle of a lesson, had walked and trotted, went back to walk for some lateral movement, then when I asked him to trot he was dead lame. Really stumped the local vets, even stumped the vets in Leesburg. I went through the stall rest - actually totaled about 13 months in total. Still wasn’t quite right so I did the shockwave, couldn’t do the stem cell due to financial issues - insurance paid for the MRI’s ( had 2 over the course) , bone scan – he really did have them stumped, and xrays, did not cover shockwave, etc.
His outcome was an OK one, he gets turned out on level surfaces, can do light W/T/C but that is it. Now he also has other issues - that most likely caused the weaken tendon and the tear - so he is not the best case scenario. He still has his good days and bays days but I have a great barn owner who is able to help take care of him.
Good luck and follow the orders to the tee!!!
My mare has been off due to a ligament tear and in the meantime I’m riding & showing one of my trainers horses. He went back to showing last year after having torn the DDFT and collateral ligament in his left front 2 years ago. They brought him back slowly, and they are extremely careful of the footing at shows, but he has been fine. (I feel like I should knock on wood!)
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I’m going through the same thing right now myself. DDFT tear diagnosed by MRI…Took a while to get a definate diagnosis (finally got the MRI) So far we have done PRP with bone marrow to the site of the tear and 3 weeks later more PRP with stem cells to the tendon sheath, (thank you Markel :D) Stall rest with 5 min handwalking 3 times a day for now… then we can increase to 10 min a day. They put my guy in a Kirkheart shoe (I think that’s it) with heel support, rocker toe and mild heel elevation shoe.
So far so good, It was 3 weeks between the intital PRP treatment and the 2nd round with the stem cells. He is handling stall rest well so far, is sound at the walk (has his big swinging walk back yeah!). and seems to feel much much better.
My vet said to bet on 8 months to a year off… and bringing him back slowly, he says they usually hedge on predicting outcome because it largely depends on how the horse does on the stall rest and rehab since it is such a long time. He did say he has had horses sucessfully return to work though, so I am keeping my fingers optimistically crossed. :yes:
My colt tore his digital flexor last March. Thanks to Great American he went through stem cells and shockwave. Within 3 weeks he was jogging sound and never took a lame step after. My vet is very conservative with rehab but after 3 months we began turning out in small medical paddocks with a lot of ace. We would have done Aquatred but the one near us was under construction and not yet finished, now that has changed but at the time it was not an option without sending away 7-8 hours. We did the walk rides, the trot sets, more trot sets, finally a canter set, eventually full flat work and started back to jumping by about September and courses by November. My gelding stayed in work over the winter and started showing in March.
Essentially, we went through and have NEVER looked back! Rehab is critical! Keep inflammation down and keep the horse quiet. I do rehab horses professionally now and if you need help please ask or PM.
There have been a bunch of past threads on DDFT injuries, here’s the most recent one…
http://www.chronofhorse.com/forum/showthread.php?t=262293&highlight=DDFT
August 2008, my horse came up slightly off on the right front. Took a while to diagnose (most of September 2008)-- at first the vets thought it was a stone bruise. When it didn’t resolve, he had more diagnostics. Nothing showed up on X-rays or ultrasound, though it clearly blocked in the foot.
In October, 2008, He had an MRI at New Bolton and then it showed a strain (not a full tear, but some light damage) in the DDFT. Recommended treatment was NSAIDS and stall rest (neither my sports medicine vet nor New Bolton recommended stem cell, Tildren, etc. I am now wondering why? Especially because I had insurance that would have covered it?!) I was told that the damage was visible but was pretty minor, so the prognosis was better than for a full tear.
The horse was on stall rest for about a year and was brought back very slowly. He went back to light flatwork in October, 2009, I took it very very slow with him, didn’t do anything but flatwork and only rode in our indoor ring (excellent footing) through March, 2010. In March, 2010, he was still sound and I started riding him outside and began jumping in April/May. He went to his first show in June, 2010-- close to 2 years after the original injury. I waited a full 2-3 months longer than I was “supposed to” to jump him.
June, 2010, he went out on turnout and came in lame in the same foot. Took him back to the vet, they’re pretty sure he reinjured the DDFT. On turnout. This is a horse that NEVER RUNS or plays, he stands like a bump on a log on turnout. And he doesn’t have a particularly high impat job-- he was an A/A hunter jumping 2’9 at the time of the reinjury. He’s on stall rest again, has been for a month and a half. I go back for a recheck tomorrow. Insurance now excludes this entire limb.
Hugs. It’s rough.
mine tore his ddft in october 09. he came in one morning with a swollen leg and wouldn’t put weight on it. vet came out the next day and did xrays etc. we knew he had navicular changes but he had developed a nice bone spur on his right navicular bone. vet felt that had probably put enough pressure or the angle was bad enough or whatever that it was soft tissue. ultrasounded a few days later and there it was. vet was guarded-with good rehab he might come back, or he might not. (was a gp jumper in youth, now a <3’ jumper)
i was able to stall rest for about 6 weeks but after that it was impossible-so i just turned him out w/my other horse. didn’t do anything with him at all until april, when i started ponying him. we also went barefoot this spring-he’d been in bar shoes as long as i’d known him and i wanted to try barefoot for the navicular, so i figured we’d make the switch while he couldn’t be ridden anyway.
he’s doing ok now…we ride and pony wt for maybe 20-30 min a few days a week and he seems to be holding up. the trimmer said if he stays sound for 30 days straight we can start cantering (he hasn’t, but that;s been due to abcesses O_o), but i will likely have him reultrasounded before then. we’ll see how it goes. good luck to you…at least you are able to get all the fancy treatments! i’ve heard good things about all of them 
Have gone through it twice (with different horses). I’ll give you the happy ending one:
Benjamin tore his DDFT in January of '96, then tore superficial flexor tendon (same leg) July '96. I gave him a full two years off and he made a complete recovery, coming back to show in hunter world (as my A/O hunter for years, then A/A hunter) until 2006. Never, ever had a problem with tendons, although I was very careful - never showed in deep footing, iced his legs after every jumping lesson/show/trail ride. Back then we didn’t have all the treatments available now - he was on stall rest with handwalking for one year before trotting a single step.
Vets never thought he’d recover. Same vets have an 8x10 photo of us winning an A/O class at Pebble Beach.
My advice (and this is based both on Benjamin and horse number 2) – double the amount of time vets recommend for each step. If they say three months of handwalking, give it six. Two months of trotting, give it four. These tears are heart-breakers and time (and confined work) are the best weapons you have.
Good luck. PM me if you want more!!!
I am involved in rehabilitating horses with this type of injury, and we are carrying out research into it at the moment. I posted info and preliminary results just over a week ago for those who are interested: http://rockleyfarm.blogspot.com/p/research-results.html
Okay, cautious optimistic update-- Somerset went for a recheck and was sound. So he may not have re injured the DDFT after all-- could have just been inflammation or something else in the foot that was sore. KNOCK ON WOOD!
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Knocking on wood for you!!!:yes:
Mine had a tear in that tendon in her RH, about 70% diagnosed by ultrasound. She was 18 at the time, and I talked to the vet about stem cell therapy, but he recommended conservative (stall rest only) first.
She healed fine, no lesion on follow-up ultrasound. Now, she’s just my learn-to-ride-on horse and doesn’t jump higher than 2 feet, but she returned to her previous level.
Hoof hearted - good luck with your horse’s recovery and treatment. We also have Great American, but are not having as good of luck with the treatment end. They covered the initial diagnostics and treatment, but limited their responsibility afterwards to three months as it happened just at the renewal period. Since this is an injury that requires a long recovery, I’m not happy about that. It seems unfair that it can be excluded during the treatment phase.
trail blazer,
I was a little worried about that and my policy comes up for renewal in February, but my “claims agent” said I was good until then, and then they would issue a 3 month extension so the treatment could be finished (I guess they think 1 year is finished). After that the leg will be excluded. I guess I will have to wait and see if I understood the claims agent correctly.
nicbarker, thank you very much for the study information. Have just received it and will review your findings. Thanks again for your generosity.
One of my horses had a DDFT in the right front. Took him to a very good clinic and decided to let “Dr. Green” (mother nature)take care of it.
After a year of layup, the horse was sound. It’s been three years and haven’t had any problems since the initial injury.
:):)
