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  Discussion on High suspensory injury in LF
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Posted on Thursday, Dec 28, 2000 - 9:47 pm:

I have a 5 yr old thoroughbred mare that has been diagnosed with a class 2 upper suspensory injury I would like to know if this is a tendon or ligament problem? she is being treated with 10days of bute and a series of 5mg of adaquan with 8 weeks of stall rest with hand walking and grazing. I know in humans if a tendon/ligament injury does not get enough stretching as it heals it tends to heal too tight. Is this the case for horses also? Could this be a concern for being more prone to reinjury?

Posted on Friday, Dec 29, 2000 - 7:21 am:

Hello Vicki,
I am not sure what you mean by a class 2 injury nor can I find such a classification in the current literature. We do grade all lamenesses with a 1 to 5 scale and we also talk about localization in the suspensory using a 1 to 3 scale, perhaps one of these is what you refer to.

Technically this is a ligament sprain but the suspensory in the young horse does have some rudimentary muscle fibers that eventually covert to all ligamentous tissue, so if someone wanted to argue the point...it really is moot.

Though it is true horses need limited exercise while healing it is not for the same reason that humans have problems. The big difference is people can lounge around the sofa all day, but horses must stand on these tissues all day. However stall rest alone results in a less strong healing if there are actually tears that must scar in.

Currently we are treating suspensory and flexor tendons the same for information on the current grading system and a excellent description of a treatment/rehab protocol see, Equine Diseases: Lameness: Problems of Muscles, Tendons, Ligaments, and Bones: Flexor Tendinitis
DrO

Posted on Friday, Dec 29, 2000 - 10:15 pm:

sorry my info was not clear, I`m having a hard time understanding what is exactly going on with my mare. Let me start at the beginning, she had some very bad bruising on soles of her RF but we kept seeing her move short and sometimes sore on both front alternatly. she went sound with a RFpalmar digital block. LF she was 75% sound with a proximal suspensory block, sonogram LF suspensory revealed type 2 lesion inZ1a/Z1b could the suspensory problem be a compensation problem?

Posted on Sunday, Dec 31, 2000 - 11:53 am:

It could possibly be a compensatory lameness due to excessive strain.
DrO
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