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Expert
Posts: 2685
   
| Please share your experiences with successfully keeping a performance horse with chronic stifle issue pain free. Please tell the issue with the stifle and treatment/ maintenance used to keep the horse sound.
Update on her stifle is that she flexed sore but horse that needs injected sore, not lame like injury pain. Sent the radiographs to Dr. Hague over at Oakridge and his OP was to inject and ride and see how she handles it. All horses are different, and there's only so much guessing they can do on prognosis.
Edited by RoaniePonie11 2017-04-21 12:41 PM
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Sock Snob
Posts: 3021
| depends on the problem and how much maintenance money your willing to spend. they used stifles to push off they can run but not clock. that is why i retired my mare, but i bred her and got 2 nice copies of what i had. | |
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Expert
Posts: 2685
| daisycake123 - 2017-04-19 9:12 AM
depends on the problem and how much maintenance money your willing to spend. they used stifles to push off they can run but not clock. that is why i retired my mare, but i bred her and got 2 nice copies of what i had.
What was the diagnosis on your mares stifles if you don't mind me asking? | |
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 It Goes On
Posts: 2262
Location: Muskogee, OK | Have a now 5 year old that when he was 2 and I was breaking him noticed him to be a bit off. I was in vet school then and we always blocked the lameness out to his stifle- no radiographic changes or cysts. Tried conservative first treating it as a synovitis- injected the joint and rested him a bit.
Fast forward to my fourth year of vet school when he wasn't any better- we scoped him at school and found "abnormal cartilage"- debrided it (which knowing what I know now, I would have never done). Stall rested him and followed rehabilitation protocol to a T.
During my internship year at Oakridge (1 year after the arthroscopy done at school). Still lame, blocked to his stifle again, no big radiographic changes. Dr. Hague and I did another arthroscopy on him and sure enough he had tons of cartilage damage within that stifle.
Pretty much stem cells and a prayer were the only hopes left. So, I bit the bullet harvested bone marrow and sent off for stem cells. We are a little over a year out after stem cell injections- I am finally now just starting him back to work and so far so good. He runs around the pasture and you wouldn't know anything was ever wrong- however the true tale will be how it holds up to work. I would love to lay him down again and scope that stifle one more time to really see the healing progress from the stem cells--- but poor guy has been under anesthesia so many times it seems I don't want to subject him to that.
I'm not sure how much workup you've done on said horse.. How old is the horse? First things first, be sure that the horses pain is truly blocking to the stifle. If that is the case, and you've exhausted other treatment modalities (injections, etc) I would absolutely recommend scoping that stifle to see what is actually going on in there. This will be you best indicator of prognosis. Have you taken radiographs? If so, what do they show? If there is an underlying soft tissue injury, or any significant cartilage damage stem cells are always the #1 recommendation and result in the best results I've found.
Now if arthroscopy + stem cell treatment is not an option for you, there are different injectables that I would consider trying. Stanozolol has recently been shown to enhance cartilage repair and that may be my first choice for an injured stifle that exhausted other options. Second up is IRAP, there are many performance horses out there with chronic stifles that have responded well to IRAP. | |
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Expert
Posts: 2685
| barrelracingchick16 - 2017-04-19 9:33 AM
Have a now 5 year old that when he was 2 and I was breaking him noticed him to be a bit off. I was in vet school then and we always blocked the lameness out to his stifle- no radiographic changes or cysts. Tried conservative first treating it as a synovitis- injected the joint and rested him a bit.
Fast forward to my fourth year of vet school when he wasn't any better- we scoped him at school and found "abnormal cartilage"- debrided it (which knowing what I know now, I would have never done). Stall rested him and followed rehabilitation protocol to a T.
During my internship year at Oakridge (1 year after the arthroscopy done at school). Still lame, blocked to his stifle again, no big radiographic changes. Dr. Hague and I did another arthroscopy on him and sure enough he had tons of cartilage damage within that stifle.
Pretty much stem cells and a prayer were the only hopes left. So, I bit the bullet harvested bone marrow and sent off for stem cells. We are a little over a year out after stem cell injections- I am finally now just starting him back to work and so far so good. He runs around the pasture and you wouldn't know anything was ever wrong- however the true tale will be how it holds up to work. I would love to lay him down again and scope that stifle one more time to really see the healing progress from the stem cells--- but poor guy has been under anesthesia so many times it seems I don't want to subject him to that.
I'm not sure how much workup you've done on said horse.. How old is the horse? First things first, be sure that the horses pain is truly blocking to the stifle. If that is the case, and you've exhausted other treatment modalities (injections, etc) I would absolutely recommend scoping that stifle to see what is actually going on in there. This will be you best indicator of prognosis. Have you taken radiographs? If so, what do they show? If there is an underlying soft tissue injury, or any significant cartilage damage stem cells are always the #1 recommendation and result in the best results I've found.
Now if arthroscopy + stem cell treatment is not an option for you, there are different injectables that I would consider trying. Stanozolol has recently been shown to enhance cartilage repair and that may be my first choice for an injured stifle that exhausted other options. Second up is IRAP, there are many performance horses out there with chronic stifles that have responded well to IRAP.
Thank you for taking the time. She is also the mare I posted about with the uterus deal going on. My plan was retire her and breed her but that is also proving challenging lol. So moral of her diagnosis is she is 8, started the barrels as a 4yo but has been laid off since diagnosed with a chip in her stifle the end of her 6yo year. I had her re-radiographer when we checked for breeding soundness. Chip has re-attached and she has 1 spur where her cruciate ligament crosses and the end of her tibia (where the original chip came from) is a little sharp so you could call it a "spur" too. She was obviously lame from the chip until about 8 months ago. After I found the chip we did strict stall rest for 6-8 mos and I couldn't take her being locked up anymore. Especially since her performance prognosis was poor I was like why torture her? Anywho, she has been sound at a long trot, lope, turn hard, buck- etc for months and Vet wanted to check on the stifle just in case. He says might be able to object and make her happy enough to ride without pain but maybe not hard performance worthy. I wondered about what other people SUCCESSFULLY battle with performance in stifles. I will not try if I think she's in pain-etc. just doing my own research. He's going to send the radios to Dr. Hague. My vet looking at her came from there. Hague has seen her before and injected her before the chip. She chipped the stifle turned out for a minor tendon strain after a D&G in Duncan. This dang horse is going to be the death of me. Good thing I love her lol. | |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 953
| If you got the money you can keep them going! Stifles are the worst imo to keep sound. We found an old racing injury in my 1D mare after a year of running she stopped turning hard. We couldn't do surgery on it and I was having to inject her every 2 months @ $700 a pop. Needless to say I couldn't afford to do that anymore so I bred her instead. i heard you can IRAP them but then your looking at double the cost $1200-$1500. I never went that route but good luck! Hope it works out for you! | |
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  Neat Freak
Posts: 11216
Location: Wonderful Wyoming | barrelracingchick16 - 2017-04-19 8:33 AM Have a now 5 year old that when he was 2 and I was breaking him noticed him to be a bit off. I was in vet school then and we always blocked the lameness out to his stifle- no radiographic changes or cysts. Tried conservative first treating it as a synovitis- injected the joint and rested him a bit. Fast forward to my fourth year of vet school when he wasn't any better- we scoped him at school and found "abnormal cartilage"- debrided it (which knowing what I know now, I would have never done). Stall rested him and followed rehabilitation protocol to a T. During my internship year at Oakridge (1 year after the arthroscopy done at school). Still lame, blocked to his stifle again, no big radiographic changes. Dr. Hague and I did another arthroscopy on him and sure enough he had tons of cartilage damage within that stifle. Pretty much stem cells and a prayer were the only hopes left. So, I bit the bullet harvested bone marrow and sent off for stem cells. We are a little over a year out after stem cell injections- I am finally now just starting him back to work and so far so good. He runs around the pasture and you wouldn't know anything was ever wrong- however the true tale will be how it holds up to work. I would love to lay him down again and scope that stifle one more time to really see the healing progress from the stem cells--- but poor guy has been under anesthesia so many times it seems I don't want to subject him to that. I'm not sure how much workup you've done on said horse.. How old is the horse? First things first, be sure that the horses pain is truly blocking to the stifle. If that is the case, and you've exhausted other treatment modalities (injections, etc) I would absolutely recommend scoping that stifle to see what is actually going on in there. This will be you best indicator of prognosis. Have you taken radiographs? If so, what do they show? If there is an underlying soft tissue injury, or any significant cartilage damage stem cells are always the #1 recommendation and result in the best results I've found. Now if arthroscopy + stem cell treatment is not an option for you, there are different injectables that I would consider trying. Stanozolol has recently been shown to enhance cartilage repair and that may be my first choice for an injured stifle that exhausted other options. Second up is IRAP, there are many performance horses out there with chronic stifles that have responded well to IRAP.
What were your horse's symptoms? | |
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It Goes On
Posts: 2262
Location: Muskogee, OK | RoaniePonie11 - 2017-04-19 9:45 AM
barrelracingchick16 - 2017-04-19 9:33 AM
Have a now 5 year old that when he was 2 and I was breaking him noticed him to be a bit off. I was in vet school then and we always blocked the lameness out to his stifle- no radiographic changes or cysts. Tried conservative first treating it as a synovitis- injected the joint and rested him a bit.
Fast forward to my fourth year of vet school when he wasn't any better- we scoped him at school and found "abnormal cartilage"- debrided it (which knowing what I know now, I would have never done). Stall rested him and followed rehabilitation protocol to a T.
During my internship year at Oakridge (1 year after the arthroscopy done at school). Still lame, blocked to his stifle again, no big radiographic changes. Dr. Hague and I did another arthroscopy on him and sure enough he had tons of cartilage damage within that stifle.
Pretty much stem cells and a prayer were the only hopes left. So, I bit the bullet harvested bone marrow and sent off for stem cells. We are a little over a year out after stem cell injections- I am finally now just starting him back to work and so far so good. He runs around the pasture and you wouldn't know anything was ever wrong- however the true tale will be how it holds up to work. I would love to lay him down again and scope that stifle one more time to really see the healing progress from the stem cells--- but poor guy has been under anesthesia so many times it seems I don't want to subject him to that.
I'm not sure how much workup you've done on said horse.. How old is the horse? First things first, be sure that the horses pain is truly blocking to the stifle. If that is the case, and you've exhausted other treatment modalities (injections, etc) I would absolutely recommend scoping that stifle to see what is actually going on in there. This will be you best indicator of prognosis. Have you taken radiographs? If so, what do they show? If there is an underlying soft tissue injury, or any significant cartilage damage stem cells are always the #1 recommendation and result in the best results I've found.
Now if arthroscopy + stem cell treatment is not an option for you, there are different injectables that I would consider trying. Stanozolol has recently been shown to enhance cartilage repair and that may be my first choice for an injured stifle that exhausted other options. Second up is IRAP, there are many performance horses out there with chronic stifles that have responded well to IRAP.
Thank you for taking the time. She is also the mare I posted about with the uterus deal going on. My plan was retire her and breed her but that is also proving challenging lol. So moral of her diagnosis is she is 8, started the barrels as a 4yo but has been laid off since diagnosed with a chip in her stifle the end of her 6yo year. I had her re-radiographer when we checked for breeding soundness. Chip has re-attached and she has 1 spur where her cruciate ligament crosses and the end of her tibia (where the original chip came from ) is a little sharp so you could call it a "spur" too. She was obviously lame from the chip until about 8 months ago. After I found the chip we did strict stall rest for 6-8 mos and I couldn't take her being locked up anymore. Especially since her performance prognosis was poor I was like why torture her? Anywho, she has been sound at a long trot, lope, turn hard, buck- etc for months and Vet wanted to check on the stifle just in case. He says might be able to object and make her happy enough to ride without pain but maybe not hard performance worthy. I wondered about what other people SUCCESSFULLY battle with performance in stifles. I will not try if I think she's in pain-etc. just doing my own research. He's going to send the radios to Dr. Hague. My vet looking at her came from there. Hague has seen her before and injected her before the chip. She chipped the stifle turned out for a minor tendon strain after a D&G in Duncan. This dang horse is going to be the death of me. Good thing I love her lol.
Interesting... so the chip was more like an avulsion fragment (when a ligament/tendon breaks and takes a piece of bone with it)? If so I would bet she also had some cruciate ligament damage +/- meniscal damage at the initial injury. Stem cells probably won't be of much benefit this late out unless she still has an active soft tissue lesion or cartilage loss- but you wouldn't know that for sure without scoping her.
IF she is sound now, and radiographing clean (spur not changing, joint space still present, medial condyle not super flattened), without stifle effusion present I would probably just inject with a standard HA/steroid protocol and put her butt to work. Bring her back slow of course like you would with any horse rehabbing from an injury. This all depends on if she was sound. If she is still off on the leg I may explore some different options.
Some horses will surprise you with how well they can heal up after a significant period of time off. | |
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It Goes On
Posts: 2262
Location: Muskogee, OK | wyoming barrel racer - 2017-04-19 10:48 AM
barrelracingchick16 - 2017-04-19 8:33 AM Have a now 5 year old that when he was 2 and I was breaking him noticed him to be a bit off. I was in vet school then and we always blocked the lameness out to his stifle- no radiographic changes or cysts. Tried conservative first treating it as a synovitis- injected the joint and rested him a bit. Fast forward to my fourth year of vet school when he wasn't any better- we scoped him at school and found "abnormal cartilage"- debrided it (which knowing what I know now, I would have never done). Stall rested him and followed rehabilitation protocol to a T. During my internship year at Oakridge (1 year after the arthroscopy done at school). Still lame, blocked to his stifle again, no big radiographic changes. Dr. Hague and I did another arthroscopy on him and sure enough he had tons of cartilage damage within that stifle. Pretty much stem cells and a prayer were the only hopes left. So, I bit the bullet harvested bone marrow and sent off for stem cells. We are a little over a year out after stem cell injections- I am finally now just starting him back to work and so far so good. He runs around the pasture and you wouldn't know anything was ever wrong- however the true tale will be how it holds up to work. I would love to lay him down again and scope that stifle one more time to really see the healing progress from the stem cells--- but poor guy has been under anesthesia so many times it seems I don't want to subject him to that. I'm not sure how much workup you've done on said horse.. How old is the horse? First things first, be sure that the horses pain is truly blocking to the stifle. If that is the case, and you've exhausted other treatment modalities (injections, etc) I would absolutely recommend scoping that stifle to see what is actually going on in there. This will be you best indicator of prognosis. Have you taken radiographs? If so, what do they show? If there is an underlying soft tissue injury, or any significant cartilage damage stem cells are always the #1 recommendation and result in the best results I've found. Now if arthroscopy + stem cell treatment is not an option for you, there are different injectables that I would consider trying. Stanozolol has recently been shown to enhance cartilage repair and that may be my first choice for an injured stifle that exhausted other options. Second up is IRAP, there are many performance horses out there with chronic stifles that have responded well to IRAP.
What were your horse's symptoms?
Just general lameness on the limb- he was a solid 3/5 on the LH and it did not respond to joint injection (there were no radiographic changes either). Some stifle effusion (swelling) was present but it was very mild. | |
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Expert
Posts: 2685
| Barrelracingchick16,
thank you much for your input. She has been sound in the pasture for a while. I don't think he flexed her the other day, just radiographed. We might test the waters on injecting a riding slowly. Even if I could so sorting or something like that on her, I would be stoked. Kinda waiting on the outcome of this repro deal to see if I want to push the riding issue. | |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 898
Location: Mountains of VA | RoaniePonie11 - 2017-04-19 12:06 PM Barrelracingchick16, thank you much for your input. She has been sound in the pasture for a while. I don't think he flexed her the other day, just radiographed. We might test the waters on injecting a riding slowly. Even if I could so sorting or something like that on her, I would be stoked. Kinda waiting on the outcome of this repro deal to see if I want to push the riding issue.
The 3 horses I had with stifle problems ALL LOOKED GREAT in the field running........put a rider on them and ask them to use their hindquarters and they still had the same problems. After months of easy legging up, they still had stifle problems. I will not waste my time or money on another with stifle problems. It is my least favorite part of the horse now. | |
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Expert
Posts: 2685
| hotpaints - 2017-04-19 6:45 PM
RoaniePonie11 - 2017-04-19 12:06 PM Barrelracingchick16, thank you much for your input. She has been sound in the pasture for a while. I don't think he flexed her the other day, just radiographed. We might test the waters on injecting a riding slowly. Even if I could so sorting or something like that on her, I would be stoked. Kinda waiting on the outcome of this repro deal to see if I want to push the riding issue.
The 3 horses I had with stifle problems ALL LOOKED GREAT in the field running........put a rider on them and ask them to use their hindquarters and they still had the same problems. After months of easy legging up, they still had stifle problems. I will not waste my time or money on another with stifle problems. It is my least favorite part of the horse now.
Mine too 100% | |
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It Goes On
Posts: 2262
Location: Muskogee, OK | RoaniePonie11 - 2017-04-19 12:06 PM
Barrelracingchick16,
thank you much for your input. She has been sound in the pasture for a while. I don't think he flexed her the other day, just radiographed. We might test the waters on injecting a riding slowly. Even if I could so sorting or something like that on her, I would be stoked. Kinda waiting on the outcome of this repro deal to see if I want to push the riding issue.
Absolutely! Keep me posted. If she is off, I would be tempted to even block on her to make sure the lameness is still coming from the stifle. | |
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Member
Posts: 48
| Ahhh, the stifle, it's considered a swear word in my house!
My mare injured hers during a run as a 7yr old early spring, I layed her off all summer. Initial X-ray showed minor changes to the area and we injected. Brought her back in the fall and ran her that winter and she ran top of the 1D, come spring I started to rodeo on her, after a couple rodeos in she quit clocking, still ran a perfect pattern but just couldn't quite clock up there like I knew she should be. This time the X-ray at a slightly different angle showed the break off her patella....terrible arthritis already developed. Injected her again and she was sound, but I knew a ticking time bomb so I quit going to rodeos, I had one jackpot in September I wanted to run her at so I just kept her legged up for that, riding her 3 times a week all summer.....but one day on our ride it blew apart.....she didn't run in that race.....I don't think she's really even sound enough to carry a foal for me. I keep her comfortable with injecting it when needed (about every 4 months) and she's on Previcox. I'm hoping with time her body heals enough I can get a foal out of her, she's 9 this year....but I'm not holding my breath.
In hindsight, my experience is there's no such thing as a "minor" injury to a stifle. They need to be treated aggressively right from the start. If your local vet determines it is a stifle issue get to the best lameness vet you can for a treatment protocol.....when I got to that vet it was too late for my mare....for how aggressive the arthritis set in though there was probably no saving her performance career any which way of it, and every horse is individual in that sense. Good luck!! | |
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Posts: 2685
| I will bump for anyone interested in the update. There's not much to see. | |
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Tried and True
Posts: 21185
Location: Where I am happiest | Jdpb - 2017-04-20 9:45 AM Ahhh, the stifle, it's considered a swear word in my house! My mare injured hers during a run as a 7yr old early spring, I layed her off all summer. Initial X-ray showed minor changes to the area and we injected. Brought her back in the fall and ran her that winter and she ran top of the 1D, come spring I started to rodeo on her, after a couple rodeos in she quit clocking, still ran a perfect pattern but just couldn't quite clock up there like I knew she should be. This time the X-ray at a slightly different angle showed the break off her patella....terrible arthritis already developed. Injected her again and she was sound, but I knew a ticking time bomb so I quit going to rodeos, I had one jackpot in September I wanted to run her at so I just kept her legged up for that, riding her 3 times a week all summer.....but one day on our ride it blew apart.....she didn't run in that race.....I don't think she's really even sound enough to carry a foal for me. I keep her comfortable with injecting it when needed (about every 4 months) and she's on Previcox. I'm hoping with time her body heals enough I can get a foal out of her, she's 9 this year....but I'm not holding my breath. In hindsight, my experience is there's no such thing as a "minor" injury to a stifle. They need to be treated aggressively right from the start. If your local vet determines it is a stifle issue get to the best lameness vet you can for a treatment protocol.....when I got to that vet it was too late for my mare....for how aggressive the arthritis set in though there was probably no saving her performance career any which way of it, and every horse is individual in that sense. Good luck!!
You can flush embryo's now for about $3,500 including the recipient mare. Be careful with the previcox. I know they say it is much better on their stomach and it is, but it still causes alot of damage over time. We had one on Previcox long term and after 3 years we lost her due to the gastric issues. I have now heard to lay them off it for 30 days at a time. My vet never gave that advice unfortunately.
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