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  Discussion on Bruise verses tendon injury
Author Message
New Member:
candice

Posted on Friday, Aug 3, 2007 - 7:19 pm:

Hi Dr. O I have a ten year old quarterhorse gelding that was ijured 30 days ago running to a stop-he is a finished reiner in very fit shape.During the rundown he tripped,I picked him up and could feel he was hurt-he could barely walk out of the stop.It felt like he hit his front right foot with the back sliding footbut I could be wrong -anyway he had heat and slight swelling in the seisomoid area of the right front foot.I iced it on and off all day and the next day started DMSO with furacin and dex.Day 3 I took him to my vet-the swelling was completely gone by day three but he was very lame.My vet did digital xrays -normal-he said he thought this was a bad bone bruise.By day 10 he was better but still quite lame and I wanted to make sure he had no tendon damage as I was not comfortable with how much to walk him.Went back to my vet-at this point he started blocking him. He was immediately sound with foot block so we pulled shoe to xray coffin bone which was normal.Next he ultrasounded from pastern down-normal.My vet explained to me that he still felt this was a bad bone bruise-he told me to put pads on with slight wedge-I have excellent performance farrier-anyway my vet also explained that he could not see the part of tendon that runs under the foot and we would need to do mri if he doesnt continue to improve.We are now at day 30-the pads helped quite a bit within 48 hrs.He is still slightly lame at the trot.He was injected in the fetlock area and the coffin bone joint at day 26 repeat ultrasounds normal.He is very slowly getting better and I have started walking and jogging about 20 minutes a day.My only nagging worry is that if we missed a tendon injury I might make it worse by not knowing exactly how much to exercise.Doing MRI is not an option for me. Thank you so much-this is my first time on this site-hope I did it right!!
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Saturday, Aug 4, 2007 - 6:33 am:

Welcome Candice,
You did just fine. The history says trauma, the localization says in the foot, the radiographs say no fracture...hmmm considering the possibilities digital flexor or impar ligament are at the top of my list and without MRI or a very good ultrasonagrapher with specialized equipment difficult to diagnose so treatment becomes empirical. I do agree that that while the daily walking beneficial the jogging might be a bit much at this time. If he has continued to improve while jogged it is an indication I might be wrong.
DrO
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