Down for the Count
Houston, we a have a problem.
I have to tell myself God has a plan. Maybe saying that is just a way of dealing with problems that would otherwise frustrate me. Maybe it is just a cop-out. It is one messed up plan sometimes though.
I got a horrendous head cold at the horse show which I am still dealing with. The vet came out the following Wednesday and did an ultrasound on Mimi’s leg. BAM. She has a bowed tendon. This is actually a better prognosis than what I suspected. I was thinking she had torn a suspensory ligament.
a ligament is the fibrous connective tissue that connects bones to other bones
Ligaments have much less blood flow than tendons, which make them harder to heal.
A tendon or sinew is a tough band of fibrous connective tissue that usually connects muscle to bone and is capable of withstanding tension.
Mimi’s ultrasound showed a “pool” of blood inside her Superficial digital flexor tendon. She had torn about 1/5 of it.
The bottom line was we were down for the count until January. Damn. Mimi has these ups and downs a lot. It’s just her luck. We can ride for 3 or 4 months then something happens and we have to stop.
So whats the plan?
1 Hand walking or ponying off of my mare, Lucy. We do 20 laps in the arena. It’s thrilling. Makes me wish we lived closer to the last facility I was at that had a horse gym. Check them out here.
2 She will get 2–3 PRP therapy treatments. PRP stands for platelet rich plasma. Sterile blood is drawn and spun down in a centrifuge then injected into the injured area. Doctors have begun to realize that the body has the capability of healing itself.
3 1,000 pulses of Shockwave therapy every 10 days or so. Shockwave therapy usually requires sedation and can only be performed by a vet. I consider it painful. It looks and sounds like this:
Several peer-reviewed scientific reports in horses have demonstrated that shockwave is beneficial in proximal suspensory desmitis (suspensory ligament injuries) and distal tarsal arthritis (bone spavin). Additionally, Shockwave has been used extensively for a number of other conditions with favorable results. These include sore back muscles, kissing spines, sacroiliac pain, lumbosacral pain, neck pain, tendonitis (especially when avulsion fractures are present), bucked shins, splint bone fractures, ringbone, navicular disease, certain bone cysts, and, more recently, non-healing wounds. Middleton Equine Clinic, Inc.
4 PEMF therapy. Another method we can use to help the body heal itself. I wrote an article on some of the things PEMF therapy can do and why we use it on Mimi already. You can find it here.
5 Cryotherapy is the fancy term I like to use for wrapping Mimi’s leg with a bag of frozen peas every few days. It’s old school, and though recommended for initial therapy, I will stop this method at the end of this week. Why? Because it does the opposite of what ALL of the above treatments do. Ice therapy decreases circulation. It decreases blood flow. No thanks!
6 Standing wraps with poultice. Standing wraps with sore no more. “Dry” standing wraps with nothing under them. No wraps at all.
As the vet and I finished up Mimi’s ultrasound and begun talking about treatments, we came to the topic of standing wraps.
A properly applied standing wrap gives support to the leg. You can think of it like compression socks for sports players. Keeps everything nice and tight.
The problem with standing wraps is that while they provide support they also decrease circulation
Do not want. While many people would wrap this horse for the next 4 months, I hesitate to do it for more than two consecutive days at a time.
There are many things you can put underneath a wrap.
Poultice is a clay which is applied directly to the leg, then covered with a wet, paper-bag material, draws heat out of an area. This is a good thing. When I detect heat in her leg I will definitely poultice her. Too much poultice can burn a horse and cause skin issues. We will stick to a maximum of once a week for a poultice on Mimi.
Sore no more liniment is an arnica-based liniment that has a cooling effect.
I already had a gallon since Mimi’s bodyworker insisted I use it on her before I ride. I can apply it to the area and not wrap the leg as well, so she will get this stuff literally every day. Mimi’s poultice is also a sore no more product, and the great thing about it is unlike other poultice products on the market, you can put it on their body without wrapping the area. I have used the poultice all over Mimi’s body. I water it down a bit for the larger areas to avoid any “chunky-ness”.
Standing wraps, like any wraps, can be applied wrong. An improperly applied wrap can actually cause something called a bandage bow. It’s an aggravation of the tendon sheath that looks exactly like a bow, but doesn’t have all the nasty consequences. Learn how to do it right by reading, watching videos, and having a professional horseman show you how.
So we have a 4 month layup. If healing a horse was only determined by the amount of effort you put into it, we would be riding by next week.
God has a plan. It’s strange and never makes any sense at the time, but when you look back years later, it all comes together in this wonderful orchestra of life.
