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  Discussion on Newborn with contracted tendons
Author Message
New Member:
Aspenhil

Posted on Wednesday, Aug 18, 2004 - 1:08 am:

Dear Members,
We had a filly born this morning (8/17) and she couldnt get up on her own. I took her to the vet and they said she is slightly premature and has contracted tendons of all four pasterns/fetlocks. She tries so hard to get up but just stands on the front of her pasterns and falls over. They are milking the mare and giving her the milk every four hours but they said only time will tell. I just want to know that I am doing everything possible for her. She has such a heart and tries so hard. I dont know if surgery is really something I want to do, considering it may never really be a quality of life. They said if she doesnt get up on her own and stand within the next three days then we will have to put her down. If thats my only choice then I understand. I just wanted a second opinion and to know I am giving her every chance to live. If I have to massage the legs every hour of every day I will. I will do whatever it takes. But I want her to have a quality life too. Is there hope? Also being premature, should we give her more than 3 days to come out of this considering she is so young?
Thanks for your time,
Gina Anding
Member:
Eoeo

Posted on Wednesday, Aug 18, 2004 - 3:11 am:

Gina, I don't know what Dr. O will say, but I would give her every opportunity. What are they doing to help her straighten out? We had a colt born 3 years ago who could not stand because his knees were so badly contracted. We took him to a stud farm which a vet operated and he treated him with tetracycline to relax the tendons and put him in splints made of pvc. He also was put on gastrogard to help his stomach survive the pain meds. They redid the splints every four hours, literally forcing his little knees to straighten. In 3 days he had made tremendous improvement. He was helped up to nurse and helped to balance once on his feet. Within one week he was without the splints. He was also a fighter. He is now in training to be a race horse and should make a good one. EO
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Wednesday, Aug 18, 2004 - 6:48 am:

Gina we outline a therapy for newborns in the article that instantly relaxes the tendons. The effect is temporary but gives the foal and the tendons a few normal days which we feel improves the chance that they will return to normal, see Equine Diseases » Foal Diseases » Tendon Laxity and Contracture for a complete set of recommendations.
DrO
Member:
DeeDrOtt

Posted on Wednesday, Aug 18, 2004 - 10:22 am:

Hello Gina
We had a colt born 5/24 (evening)with contracted tendons two front legs (fetlock area), he could not stand, although he did try, but was bent over and standing on his ankles, so we milked the mare fed him every 4 hours and in the morning our vet came out to see him and placed splints (made from PVC - cut in half)on him from the knee down with lots of padding - he was able to stand and nurse. Later that day another colt was born and the attention was off the 1st one and we did not notice until later that evening that one of the splints had twisted, he was still standing but not as well as earlier. The vet was out again the next morning and made an appointment for us to take him to Michigan State to see the vets there by 1:00pm we were there and they had him laying down on the softest cushion and one of the vet techs was fabricating his splints (again out of PVC) He had splints from under his shoulder down and molded so his foot would hit the ground. He and the mare stayed for a couple days - they took off the splints and he was able to walk on his own with soft splint support. When he came home (stall rest of course) he started to break over at the ankle again even with the soft splint, so my daughter took a Heidi boot - put a broken off paint stick behind it and vet wrapped it around so he could not break over front ways. This worked and within a week he was walking fairly normal. A week later we turned him and the mare out with the other two mares and foals and he was walking up and down the big hill just fine - then last week he taken back to MSU for a check up. Although he was doing much much better than he had - they recommened that he have the surgery to cut the check ligiment in both legs so he can put the proper pressure on each foot otherwise the foot may not grow and develop normal. He is home on stall rest for a month - with sterile bandages changed every 2-3 days, then he will be on standing wraps for another couple weeks. Soon after that he will be able to join his two brothers back in the pasture.

He also had one dose of tetracylcline the first day the vet came out - at MSU they did not recommend this because of some of the side affects which one they were concerned about was diarrea and that could result in dehydration. He also was on the gastroguard to help his stomach with the pain meds he was on for a while. The total cost so far does exceed $2,500 however he has the potential to be an extremely nice warm blood colt and he has very good breeding. So - its an individual call as to what you do - they all deserve a chance it just sometimes comes down to time and money.

Good luck - if you have a more questions as to what we did let me know.

Dee
Member:
Deggert

Posted on Wednesday, Aug 18, 2004 - 1:42 pm:

Gina
I was wondering how premature. Do you know how many days the mare was? I have had contractures and one pre-mature but he was 320 days, so just a little under done. He was fine with tubing with milk and was up in a few hours. We had good luck on the contracture with Tetracycline and big Robert Jones bandages, no splints. They were off in 12 hours on one leg and 24 on the other.
He had hind leg contracture and he is fine today at 3 yrs. Hope your filly does well.
Member:
Sylvy

Posted on Wednesday, Aug 18, 2004 - 3:02 pm:

Look into Intravenious Tetrecyclyne, bandaging and physical mainipulation. Our filly had the worst case the University of Washington had ever seen. She's fine now! Good luck!
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Wednesday, Aug 18, 2004 - 5:01 pm:

Dear Borderline, MSU's concern about diarrhea is a bit misplaced I believe. The mechanism by which this occurs is to upset the normal flora of the horses bowel however newborns do not have any established intestinal flora to disturb.
DrO
Member:
Aspenhil

Posted on Wednesday, Aug 18, 2004 - 8:31 pm:

Thank you to all for your responses. Very helpful! I will read the article Dr. O. Thanks so much.
I just got back from there and she is doing better on her front legs(still not standing because of the back ones). Her front pasterns are slowly straightening out with lots of rubbing and lightly stretching them out. They are now telling me that our biggest problem is in the back legs. The problem is in the capsule of the ankle joint, (not contracting tendons like they originally thought).They said the only thing they can do is wait and see if she comes out of it. There is really no remedy or name for it. They said it is just the way she was made. There has to be something we can do?? I will now have to start researching this.
I did ask about the Tetrecycline and they said they are feeling good enough about the front legs to not have to use that, but with the back legs, it would do no good since we now are dealing with something other than tendon contraction in them. I just hope they know what they are doing. I am going to keep researching until I figure this out. Maybe Dr. O can shed some light on what could be wrong with the ankle joint capsules in the hind lges and what I can do, or reference to literature to read about it. Even with light force, we cannot pull either foot out to a normal position. I will search this site for more info on ankle joint capsules. Thank you again for all of your help and optimism!
Gina Anding
Member:
Aspenhil

Posted on Wednesday, Aug 18, 2004 - 8:38 pm:

Debbie,
She was just a little early. She has good size and everything is developed well. They just said they could see she was a little premature because her coat was really silky. It didnt seem to concern them that she was too early though. Thanks for your thoughts.
Gina
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Thursday, Aug 19, 2004 - 6:34 am:

Other than a mention as a cause of contracture we do not have much specific information on malformed joint capsules Gina. I am afraid severe deformities of this type have a poor prognosis where as slight deformities may be fairly easy to correct. Treatment consists of frequent active manipulation of the capsule to get it to stretch-grow back into a normal shape. Splinting that creates tension to keep the capsule stretched would be extremely helpful in managing such cases.
DrO
Member:
Aspenhil

Posted on Thursday, Aug 19, 2004 - 10:27 pm:

Thanks for your advice Dr O. You have been very helpful. I guess sometimes its just not meant to be. This is a great site and I will be back again next time I am looking for info on my horses.
Thanks again,
Gina
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