Equine Tendon and Ligament Injury Recovery Checklist
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Equine Tendon And Ligament Injury Recovery Checklist Brought to you by: Medrego - Biotechnology Stem Cell Company - www.medrego.com Medrego - 2019 Facts: Every third sport horse has a tendon, ligament, joint or cartilage injury during its career. 70% of injured horses are unable to reach their previous results. Repeated injuries occur in 66% of all cases. After injury has healed - scar tissue forms and horse can remain lame. No matter what sort of treatment you choose when your horse injures a tendon or a ligament, the most important treatment will be time. Tendons and ligaments go through a much slower process of healing than other body tissues because of the way they are built. Both structures consist of an organized network of dense and elastic connective tissue. It is rich in protein called collagen. Fibers of collagen stretch to take the load when your horse puts his weight on the leg and spring back when the weight comes off. If the load that your horse puts on his leg is too much, the fbers can tear. The torn fbers repair slowly because the amount of cells that help tendon and ligament tissue regenerate are relatively low. In addition to this - tendon and ligament tends to have a poor blood supply. To get the best result after recovery you will need to follow a carefully crafted rehabilitation program. Consult your veterinarian in order to provide the best care for your horse. To help you navigate in this complicated and time consuming challenge, we have created a 12 step recommendation programm. Remember that each horse is different and so are the injuries. We have provided general guidelines that can be adjusted by your horses specifc needs. How to Properly Manage Recovery 1. Cool Down Why cooling down is needed? The frst stage of healing is “infammatory stage”r which generally takes place frst fve or seven days after the injury.This is a usual response of the body to an injury. Redness and heat are caused by increased blood fow. As the result of increased fuid movement and white blood cell movement swelling occurs. If infammation process is prolonged there is a risk of it leading to atrophy of muscles and decreased ability to activate the muscles, resulting in a secondary tissue damage. Ice cooling your horses injury can also help limit the blood vessel fuid leakage into the surrounding tissues thus preventing infammatory processes. This means that there will be less infammation to start with and your horses healing time will be shortened. How to apply? To decrease infammation you should cool down the injured area. It is important to apply cold therapy in the frst two or three days after the injury when the acute stage is in place. Apply cold therapy carefully as 20 or 30 minutes at once is enough to have the benefcial effects. If you keep applying cold for too long - cold can start to damage tissues. For maximum effect you can do 20 minutes on and 30 minutes off regime for cold therapy. Cold-water hosing is the simplest way to draw heat out of the injury. Ice water bucket is great if your horse will stand in it. In case your horse won’t withstand the ice cold water bucket, there are many cooling systems available on the market such as Ice Horse that continuously keep the cold circulating around the leg. You can use crushed ice (in ice boots, for example) as well, but it may be less effective because the surface contact between the ice and the leg is often inconsistent. Additionally ice treatment will help your horse to feel better almost immediately because of the numbing effects that cold have on tissues. 2. Wrap Why wrapping is needed? Applying support for the injured leg is equally as important as cold therapy. Wrapping a leg injury will give support, promote circulation and help reduce swelling which is one of the most important factors in the healing process. By putting on a pressure wrap, the pressure is applied not only for the skin but also to deeper tissues. This will help to even out the pressure throughout the leg therefore reducing swelling. By applying a standing wrap you will also ensure the necessary support for the leg. How to apply? It is best to apply a standing wrap. A standard standing wrap consists of a nylon bandage and cotton quilted pad. The injured leg should be dry before applying a standing wrap (a leg quilt secured with a track bandage). To help stimulate the blood fow you can add liniment directly to your horse’s leg under the wrap before applying a standing wrap. Apply it to your horse’s lower leg and massage it in from the knee down to the ankle to get the blood fowing. Rub until the leg feels dry. Continue by applying standing wrap. Place the long edge of the wrap against the inner part of the leg so that the top edge would be up to the knee and the bottom edge below the fetlock. Wrap counterclockwise. Always start from the inside and go forward unrolling the wrap by applying gentle and even pressure. Place the bandage on the inner part of your horse’s leg against the wrap facing away from the leg. Start from the middle of wrap and unroll the bandage counterclockwise and downward with even pressure. Once you reach the bottom, start wrapping upwards. Carefully line up the hook-and-loop attachment of the bandage. Additionally you can use a mild poultice with the bandage to help draw out heat, but avoid any agent that could irritate the skin or increase infammation. Bandage the opposing leg as well, for support in case the horse shifts load from the injured leg. Reset bandages at least once a day. Standing wrap shouldn’t be too loose or too tight. Seal the top and the bottom of the wrap to ensure that debris won’t get near the wound. 3. Medicate Consult your veterinarian to understand the size and location of the injury. It is necessary to perform ultrasound to assess the proper healing regime. Your veterinarian may prescribe medication, usually phenylbutazone (bute), funixin meglumine (Banamine) or a similar nonsteroidal anti-infammatory drug during this period. Besides reducing infammation, these drugs help make your horse feel more comfortable. But keep in mind that these medications won’t help improving the healed tissue quality. Alternative therapies to improve healing results Nowadays there are available cutting edge cell based therapies that can actually improve the quality of the healed injury. Any repair process usually produces scar tissue over a large period of time. This newly formed scar tissue is very different from what a normal tendon or ligament structure is like. When the highly organized tendon fber structure is disrupted by injury, it will never be the same. It also means that the amount of mechanical stress that a horse can endure is less and that there is a larger possibility for the same injury to reoccur. Stem cell therapy is one of the most effective regenerative medicine treatments available. It is a fast growing feld both in veterinary medicine and human medicine. This treatment allows us to use body’s own repair tactics to achieve a better healing result. Stem cells are used to make up different necessary body tissues such as muscle, bone, blood and nerves. In order to avoid any scar tissue, 2 weeks after the acute infammation process has decreased, apply stem cell therapy to the affected area. This will help to create new cartilage, fat and fbrous tissues. Injected stem cells will be drawn to the affected area and recruit cells from other areas of the body to promote tissue regeneration. Stem cells allow better repair with formation of more organized tissue and less scar tissue. In this way your horse will be able to return to full amount of function with a signifcantly smaller chances of recurring injuries. A large advantage to stem cell therapy is a faster regeneration which means faster recovery time. Your horse can be up and running in 3 to 6 months instead of the usual 9 to 12 month recovery period. It is best to apply stem cell therapy up to a month after the injury. If the healing process has advanced already before stem cell therapy application, the effects of therapy might not be as effective. Platelet-Rich Plasma or PRP therapy is another commonly used regenerative medicine. It has a rich concentration on platelets - small cell fragments that are present in blood. Usually they are helping blood to clot but it can also release high concentration of growth factors that promote healing. When injecting PRP to the affected area, it releases powerful healing proteins that stimulate tissue repair. This can be used separately or together with stem cell therapy for best results. 4. Confne In most cases, strict stall rest is best at frst. Since confned horses tend to display undesirable behaviours you should care for your horses wellbeing also while he is confned. Ensuring that the stall have a good ventilation is important for airway health and for keeping your horse well rested and healthy. Any excess dust particles in the stall can have a negative effect on your horses wellbeing. To prevent this you can use high quality hay/bedding, clean stalls from any used (urine soaked) bedding or hay twice a day. If you have any fans installed in the stall, try to place them so they don’t whip up any dust particles.