JourneysEnd said:
I have seen good results with striation surgery, except for Hobby Horse Leia and Kody. I think Leia's been pleased with with Kody's desmotomy.
The advantage to the striation is that the horse can usually still sleep while standing.
Once the ligament is cut, they can no longer sleep or fully relax while standing.
Of course, they can still lie down to sleep.
I've never heard of arthritis being a problem and I do several horses that have gone through the surgery.
Exercise is good. Supplements don't help.
Every vet you talk to will have a different opinion. They all agree that the surgery should be the last resort but the vets I consulted with over the last four years (and there were lots of them!) agreed that the hormone therapy or blistering only helped in very minor cases and even then usually wore off within six months. They told me it would be a waste of money to try it on a horse as bad as Kody.
I have heard the arthritis thing and that's what kept me from doing the surgery for so long. However he'd gotten to the point where he was doing so much damage to his body from the locking that I figured the arthritis couldn't be any worse even if he did get it! And at least he'd have useful, pain-free years in between. I have given joint supplements for the last two years and will continue to do so for the rest of his life. It won't help the locking but it WILL help keep the joint sound and the horse out of pain. You didn't throw your money away!
A friend had her mare blistered the same month Kody got the ligament splitting surgery and for both of us it worked for a little while and then wore off leaving them worse than before. We had our horses cut by the same vet on the same day in March and both of us have been very happy with the results so far.
The thing with the splitting surgery is that rehab is long and intense and you can't ever let them get out of condition or the problem comes right back. Immediately! So it isn't so much a cure as a method of improving it. Frankly as much as I love Kody I don't have two hours a day to spend working him over cavaletti every day for the rest of his life and that's what it would have taken for that surgery to be successful. I wanted him to be able to walk around a paddock or stall without locking and the only way to do that in the end was to CURE the locking with the desmotomy. I was so scared but Kody is in far less pain after this procedure than the splitting and is healing much faster. He's so excited to be free at last! He loves to hand me his hind feet now and kick and buck and back up and do all those things he couldn't do before.
The more I talk to other people who have tried the splitting, the more I'm finding out the desmotomy seems to be the only permanent answer. The vets I talked to this spring also said it is coming back into fashion. Apparently the quieter you keep the horse at first, the less chance of arthritis there is later. Oh, and as for sleeping standing up? Many of the people who PM'ed me when I was making the decision said their horses still do it just fine and I've found that to be the case with Kody too. He was resting one hind leg during the entire procedure (being heavily tranquilized of course) and I kept expecting the supporting leg to buckle after the tendon was cut but it never did. I've seen him rest one hind leg at least twice since although he doesn't do it very deeply, just sort of rests on the toe-tip. He's only six weeks out so I'm hoping as he heals more he'll go back to doing it more often. Meanwhile he sleeps lying down a lot as he always has and has developed a new habit of standing with both hind feet tucked up under him like the "End of the Trail" pose and resting that way. It seems to work for him and be quite comfortable!
If your mare is four years old and still doing this routinely, don't wait. Just get the surgery done and save yourself the years of heartache I went through. I'd always try exercise first and for a minor case I might consider the splitting again, but not for a horse who does it routinely. It isn't worth it. Kody agrees!
Leia