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Discussion on Loose stifle estrogen therapy
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Member:
barbgre
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Posted on Tuesday, Nov 27, 2007 - 1:57 pm:
We have a 4 year old mare with stifle issues. She had her ovaries removed when she was 3 to be used as a teasing mare. I have heard from a local vet that they are treating stifles with Estrogen as it will tighten the ligaments. Has anyone had any experience with this treatment. Thank you
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Member:
mysi
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Posted on Tuesday, Nov 27, 2007 - 2:44 pm:
Barbara,
My friend has a thoroughbred who had "loose stifle" issues and the vet put him on Estrone (an Estrone therapy drug they compound themselves). My horse also had stifle issues from an injury and I used it as well. In both cases the Estrone was used along with lengths of walking and trotting on firm straight surfaces, then eventually up inclines and both horses did fabulous. As with everything, it's hard to say if it was the drug or the exercise regimen, but I believe it was a combination of both. I know lots of people that have used the estrogen therapy and were very happy with it.
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Moderator:
DrO
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Posted on Wednesday, Nov 28, 2007 - 7:03 am:
Hello Barbara,
As we have noted in discussions before the rationale as described in your post makes no sense with our current knowledge: estrogen's effect on ligaments is to relax them. Just prior to birth estrogen levels increase and one of the results is the pelvic ligaments relax to aid birth. Though we have no studies in horses studies of the effects of estrogens in other species also shows relaxation of the major muscoskeletal ligaments and actually weakens the ligaments tensile strength.
That said this is a popular therapy so maybe the actual pathogenesis involves an overly tight ligament or some other mechanism of action? Frankly I have never had to resort to such therapy and usually find the large majority of cases work it out themselves. You will find a treatment regimen using estrogen in the article on UF of the P.
DrO
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