Tendon injury. . . PRP, Shockwave, other treatments?

my horse suffered a pretty sever tendon injury and I also have a horse with "weak" tendons. he is always sound but one in a while his tendons will get puffy.

here is what I did/still do with BOTH of them the keep them sound and prevent injury etc.

my horse with weak tendons gets turned out PM-9 am and is in from 9 am until PM. during that time I call it his "tendon strengthen time" (I'm silly, I know)

and I cold hose him for 10 min's approx. then ice boot him while I go and ride or something. after the ice boots are done I wrap his legs with a poultice or "pain relief salve" (it is the BEST stuff I have ever used. unfortunately I can only get it from a vet in Florida and it is kind of costly) or a furacin sweat. I rotate the stuff I use to prevent burning/irritation etc. he then goes out or I ride him etc. since I have been doing this he is had no puffy-ness etc. my horses are on my property so this is easy for me I guess, but since your guy is on stall rest you can wrap him up at night. when my horse injured his tendon I was still boarding....

anyway, I think babying their tendons is well worth the time. especially for a horse with a previous injury. it wont fully heal for a year anyway.

my horse who had the actual injury was of course stall rested. his schedule was I wrapped him with either a sweat, poultice of other salve at night. then un wrapped him in the morning, cold hosed him 20 minutes and grazed him while he had ice boots on so he could get out. then I would massage him with a liniment and out him in his stall. I would then come back around PM and wrap him for the night. he was also on SMARTTENDON which I think was a godsend for both my guys!!!! instead of the full 6 months stall rest he was rested 4.5 months and got to go out in a round pen for 30 minutes a day (part of his recovery and re conditioning) I now have all my horses on it and since they have started it they all have no problems at all. you can get it from smartpak.

I also invested in getting my horses all a full set of SMB elite boots. they give the best support of any boot I have ever used on my horses. I wrapped both my horses with back on track no bows to speed healing and they wore the sheet at night and I now own 5 saddle pads for each of my horses when I ride them. I rotated between them and my magnet boots/sheet.

as for treatments etc....

all my performance horses, tendon injury or not get a massage, chiropractic adjustment and acupuncture on a bi monthly basis. massage every month and then we rotate the acupuncture and chiro every other. they all seem to do well with it. we also have an aqua/dry treadmill which was AMAZING for my horses with the tendon injuries because it is LOW compaction on their joints and tendons and it got them exercised and kept them fit and moving.

shockwave seemed to help a lot with my "weak tenon"ed horse as well as my injured horse and we are still doing follow up treatments on both of them. it has basically reversed a lot of the damage in their tendons and we are looking into doing it with my other horses as well.... also the iwrap was good (stem cell) mention that to your vet.

it is very costly to maintain and there is no guarantees in tendon injuries. the key is lots of patience and rest. don't rush into getting him back into work once he is healed. (I'm sure you know all this) but really, it is in your horses best interest. even when you think your over the hump and all is well,..give it another month!! seriously, it happens all too often that the horse is sound after a few months and people rush back in and then 6 months later..that oh so familiar "bow" along with heat and swelling and back to square one.

It's a lot of money to do shockwave etc. like I said so make sure it is really worth it. if it had happened to a older horse of mine or one who was not highly competitive (the 2 that got injured were high level competitors so I invested the time, money and heartache) I probably would have stuck them in a huge pasture and retired them from seriois show work. make sure your vet feels a full recovery is plausible before you invest thousands (yes, thousands) into his recovery. THIS IS NOT me saying "only show horses are worth the money" AT ALL, make sure your horse is comfortable, of course and make sure he heals to the best he can but your horse will heal in a huge field as well as he would being miserable in a stall for 6 months. I hope this came off as well and inoffensive and non ignorant as I wanted it to :)

here are some websites for the products I mentioned...

smarttendon

http://www.smartpakequine.com/ProductClass.aspx?pr...

SMB elite boots

http://www.smartpakequine.com/ProductClass.aspx?pr...

Back on track sheet

http://www.smartpakequine.com/ProductClass.aspx?pr...

Back on track no bows

http://www.smartpakequine.com/ProductClass.aspx?pr...

ice boots

http://www.smartpakequine.com/ProductClass.aspx?pr...

I pay about $1800/treatment of shockwave.

Iwrap/stem cell costs about $4000 a treatment ($2050 to extract the bone marrow or blood) and $1800 to inject into the tendons. I only did this once with both of them and it worked but is very costly. The shockwave we did every 10 days for 2 months and then did every 20 days for 4 months and now do every other month. it has reversed a lot of damage in my horses and I plan to do it with all of them eventually.

After everything was said and done my horse with the injured tendon was back in the level 6 jumpers and is showing level 3 dressage :)

OH! to answer you front vs. hind leg question. i see it about 50/50. on the plus hind legs probably are easier to heal as they only carry 40% vs. 60% of the horses weight.

p.s. what tendon/ligament did your horse injure?

EDIT:

i used to live near a university and would go to them for EVERYTHING. now i dont and have to spend what i have to to get the best for my guys.

$400 is still a little low though. i think $1000 is about the cheapest i quoted. from a university i can see that though...

stem cell is actually really effective in my experience. but with the money the way it is...i can see why she decided that way.

the treadmil is awesome! i am trying to convince my parents to invest in one for our horses. but the BOT and game ready system are just about the greatet inventions ever. magnetic therapy seems to help as well....i have heard otherwise though from people and vets as well. but who knows.

honestly, everything horse-related is expensive. i do splurge on occassion but overall i dont think i do mre than i have to. the horse who dont have injuries are treated like any normal show horse would be. their legs get wrapped after a hard work out, they see the chiro, masseuse, acupuncturist and vet on a routine basis and they get lots of carrots. only difference is my horse (yes, even the show horses) go out a minimum of 18 hours a day on 10 acres with friends. and i think that makes all the difference on all my horses. tey arent stuck in a stall 24/7.

Unless you are well trained on bandage wrapping, don't attempt to wrap this, or you may further the damage. This requires a vet to diagnose...it does sound like a tendon bow. there are varying degrees of bowed tendon injuries, and you need the vet to evaluate this. You can't know the proper treatment without an accurate diagnosis. At least get on the phone and describe the symptoms to your vet, and get an opinion as to whether he needs to see the horse, and follow his advice on treatment. EDIT...I don't know if you will even see this. I would not give bute without first speaking to the vet, for a multitude of reasons including that you shoudn't mask symptoms that the vet may need to see if he decides to come, which is not unlikely. The fact that the swelling goes up the leg as it does makes abscess a less likely cause, unless infection has spread diffusely into the skin tissue, as in cellulitis, which is serious.

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magnetic therapy i now might help you can by special magnetic boots and blankets etc