About 3 weeks ago, my favorite vet (and one of the smartest out there IMHO :) ), Dr. Jen Powers, came over to vet our local endurance ride. At the same time, she came over some days early, to do dental (her specialty) work and any other stuff those of us out here in podunkville needed doing for our horses (or other animals too). I signed up to have my mare Eowyn's teeth done, and have Dr. Jen re-ultrasound Storm. She had looked at him about 3 weeks after his initial injury, and had figured out he likely had injured himself compensating for soreness in his other hind leg, from an old injury. His whole body was out of whack too, and she did some acupuncture and showed us some chiro stuff to do on him. She also did a full lameness eval and tried to figure out his supposed locking stifle issue (diagnosed by the local vet at the time of Storm's initial ultrasound, but without a lameness eval or anything..). She couldn't find anything that indicated this problem and we tossed that out. She was also much more hopeful for a recovery for Storm, though at the time she didn't have her ultrasound machine with her, for a full diagnosis.
Basically he got off til I was back from XP and then some, so he had about 6mos of pasture rest. Now, was the time to see what those 6 mos had done...what would his leg look like? How much had it healed and what would the future hold for him? Remember, per the local vet, Storm basically was done for and maybe, just maybe, could become a light trail riding horse. Endurance was likely out for good, or any other competitive event. All I had worked for, was out.
Dr.J gave Storm some happy juice...
"Ooohhhhhh.... I feel weeeiiirrrddd... What the heck was in that syringe?!"
How to teach a horse to ground tie: give happy juice, walk away... ;)
LOL... I always love the droopy lipped, stupid look on a tranqued horse... :)Next, the legs get shaved for a clearer picture...
First the 'old injury' leg... (Eowyn is in the stocks in the background, letting HER happy juice kick in before getting her teeth all prettied up...)
And then the 'new injury'...still ground tied...good boy :) I love happy juice :)Next, the good Doc starts imaging his legs...
Setting up the ultrasound machine and getting ready...
Hmmm... What do we see??? My heart was beating a mile a minute, while she was looking around in there...
The result? TOTALLY healed! Not even any scar tissue. In fact, if we didn't know better that it had been injured, she says she wouldn't be able to tell. All the fibers are clean, and lined up in the proper order... all the way through each tendon/ligament, up and down the leg. NOTHING is wrong anymore...
No freaking way! How awesome is that?!!?!!!!?? I so can NOT believe it, but am happy beyond words. Not only is he NOT broken anymore, but his endurance future is hopeful again :) WHOO FREAKING HOO!!!! :):):)
Then, for good measure, we checked the other leg too. Since Dr. J had suspected that compensating for the (prob. not healed properly to begin with, since he went to training in that Kentucky show barn, then came here and after a short break, was started trail riding, then conditioning for and competing in endurance...) old fence injury, likely caused his newer injury, it was a good idea to check it out and see if it was healed or not. If not, then it didn't matter what the other leg looked like, he'd still not be 100%. But, all was well. The 6 mos off gave BOTH legs the time they needed, to recover. This leg looked 100% too!! AWESOME!!So what next? Dr. Jen started us right off on rehab riding. First 2 weeks are walking 30 minutes with only 10 minutes therein of gaiting work. Then the next 2 weeks we work up to 40 and 15. And then go from there. Later on, I'll also re-ultrasound to make sure things are going well (and good old fashioned checking the leg...any heat/swelling/soreness/etc and I back off again...).
Whoo hoo! I get to ride my boy again! :):):)
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