Equine Stifle Problems and Blistering

 

Good Morning! Did you remember to change your clocks this weekend?

I can’t believe it’s about to be winter. Although for some I guess they are already feeling like it is. This summer was so nice, I’m really going to miss it. I enjoyed the cooler summer weather and being able to ride all day and not sweat to death. I hope that we’ll have another mild summer next year.

But anyway. It’s been quite some time since I last wrote about Gracie and some new discoveries have come about. For those of you not familiar with Gracie’s story, here are quick links to previous posts:

• Prayers for Gracie
• Continue to Pray for Gracie
• Update on Gracie
• Gracie’s Locking Stifle
• Chiro visit for Gracie
• 2nd opinion for Gracie

 

Long story short, last year about this time, I came home to find Gracie acting very weird in the pasture. Still to this day I have no idea what happened to her but she ended up having major problems with her right stifle locking. After seeing different vets and getting different opinion, I ended up having 2 Equine Chiropractors come out. The first few visits seemed to help but she never was 100% so I tried a different Chiro. The second Chiro found a lot of problems the first one didn’t find and Gracie seemed to get a lot better. For a while, I thought she had made a complete recovery but then a few weeks ago, out of the blue she started showing problems with her stifle again. At this point, the Chiro and I were starting to think there was more wrong then what we could see because she was constantly needing to be readjusted plus we felt she shouldn’t still have problems with her stifle.

So at this point, I decided it was time to find a doctor that specialized in this type of lameness and see what could be done and what her chances of barrel racing were going to be. While researching equine rehab centers, I found an equine sports med vet about an hour from me and gave them a call to talk to them about her problems and see if it was something they could help with. As luck would have it, Dr. Hassinger has seen many cases of horses with this type of problem and has had a 95% success rate getting it fixed.

This past sat. was Gracie visit with Dr. Hassinger and let me say I am impressed and very hopeful that she’ll have a great career running barrels. First off, his facility is the nicest place I’ve been to yet. He operates his clinic and rehab out of his barn and the place was top of the line and very clean. The visit started out with him doing a lameness exam and right away he could tell what was wrong with her. Gracie’s problem was a very loose ligament around the patella. His recommended treatment for this was blistering her stifle and keeping her in work.

If you research blistering stifles you’ll find that the most common method is using iodine. Dr. Hassinger doesn’t prefer that method and instead opts to use Amikacin. Amikacin is basically an antibiotic that will irritate the problem area and cause it to tighten up. In Gracie’s case, he had to inject a few different places because her stifle area was so loose. Along with doing this, I’m also going to be giving her Estrone injections for the next few weeks and working her everyday which should also help to tighten the ligaments. He plans to recheck her in December to see how she’s coming along and if another treatment is necessary. Her prognosis is great though. He expects her to make a full recovery and not be limited in any way. He is 95% certain she can continue to have a barrel racing career and not have any more probs, as long as she stays in constant work. He said the biggest thing about horses with this type of problem is that they need be ridden consistently. Another thing I learned from the visit was – her hip constant being out of place wasn’t an issue on its own, it actually is a symptom of stifle problems. He said he often sees horses with stifle problems have problems with their hips because they are trying to protect the problem leg and move different from how they should.

It’s now been two days since she had the procedure done and she is doing well. I can tell she is a little sore but not so bad she can’t walk around. For the most part she acts like her normal self and nothing seems to bother her. There are no visible signs externally that anything was done and she hasn’t had any extra swelling or complications. Fingers crossed everything heals the way we want it to and we are able to start running barrels next spring.

I want to take a quick poll now. I’ve spent hours and hours doing research on stifle problems in horses and treatments. I’ve found lots of great information about what to do and read about lots of people who have done the blistering but I can’t find many after stories. I feel like there have to be more people like me that want to know how the horses that have had it done are doing afterwards and for that reason I thought I would continue to post updates on Gracie. Here’s what I would like to know from you though:

 

1. Are you interested in reading how her recovery is going and what I’m doing with her? Let me know Yes or No in the comments below.
2. If you are, then how often and how detailed do you want me to post about it? Do you want to know everything I do on a daily basis or quick weekly updates?

 

I really would love to hear from you, so please leave me a comment and let me know your thoughts. Even if you don’t care one way or the other, just drop me a quick hello. 😉  If you’ve had a horse that needed his/her stifles blistered, I’d love to hear how it went and if your horse was able to continue in it’s career.