For anyone who has read my posts in the past- my hoof problem horse was finally diagnosed in march for the REAL front end problem: a lesion on his left front suspsensory. He has been on stall rest and small pen "turn out" since March 25th. He is getting hand walked for about 30-40 mins 2x a day. He is getting liniment on as well ast BOT at night when the weather is cool enough. How should I go about rehabbing him back to riding once he is cleared to be ridden? I was thinking about ponying him or hand walking him saddled at first but I'm not sure how I should increase the work load over time. Thoughts? Experiences?
For the first ride I do a lot of walking and some trotting and from there I gradually introduce more ever ride. They saying long trotting is the best so I have always rehabbed mine with lots and lots of it.
Posts: 13739 Location: Where the long tails flow, ND
Didn't your vet give you a designed rehab schedule? Mine always have. Usually it is hand walking, a week of walking/trotting on a lunge line, then adding loping and see how they do. If they need to go back to another week of trotting. Etc. That is just an example. Just surprising they didn't give you one. Before I started at rehab I always went for a recheck after the stall rest time was up to see how the healing was doing.
Check with the vet to see if healed enough before going on with the rehab. I would start out in a small area for control with walking and increase time every three/five days to where you are walking a 1/2 hour.
Sorry all I am not always on here. Anyway, yes he has been walking and my vet is going to discuss with me when he has his next ultrasound in july. I am just looking for experiences, I really want to be slow and gradual about it because I am a worrier and tend to go slow as possible through these things. edited to add that my vet did say that he could start trotting, in hand or lunging but I haven't started that because I don't want to stress the lesion. He is getting hand walked quite a bit to make up for the lack of trotting ( approx 30 mins twice a day)
Didn't your vet give you a designed rehab schedule? Mine always have. Usually it is hand walking, a week of walking/trotting on a lunge line, then adding loping and see how they do. If they need to go back to another week of trotting. Etc. That is just an example. Just surprising they didn't give you one. Before I started at rehab I always went for a recheck after the stall rest time was up to see how the healing was doing.
Good luck!
I have some Magnacu tendon wraps that I bought to change over to from the BOT; hope they help him!
Rehab Gurus...
