Locking Stifles - But not reacting to normal treatment..

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Calekio

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I have a 4yr old british shetland pony. She is out of miniature parents who are 33" and 33.5" and she is currently standing in excess of 36/37" so she has way overshot both her parents and pretty much all her siblings!

She came back to me April 2010 and i had noticed her locking stifles (upward fixation of the patella)... she looked the typical lanky youngster and wasn't that bad so i didn't worry about it too much. Over winter she struggled, lost weight and condition, got very cold and her stifles got so bad she could barely walk! Obviously vets were involved who beginning of the year gave her a steriod injection to help her gain condition and weight and she slowly started to come back up but her stifles weren't improving, i was lunging her daily which made it worse, so changed to some lighter lunging and in hand work but wasn't getting any results and vets talking about an operation to fix the problem.

Now beginning of spring i spoke to my vet and we agreed to give her the summer, feed her up, do some work with her and allow her more time to mature as she is very tall!!

Here is the confusing part.. she also has sweet-itch so i stabled her over night as she was going nuts in the field, expecting a big problem with her legs but.. its the other way round.. stabled at night she is at leasy 85% improved... so i've decided instead to do the oppisite to what you'd normally do with locking stifles.. stabling at night no extra exercise other than the odd walk round the block in hand... few weeks ago i tried leaving her out over night... nope that won't work as she instantly the next morning was worse so back in the stable at night.

She does still lock up but its occassionally and its not severe.. its managable and i'd leave her a little while longer to see if she does eventually grow out of it.. as even though she is 4 she is still growing!!

Has anyone come across this before? My vets are baffled... i'm baffled....
 
all I can tell you is that lunging is the worst possible exercise you can give her , all work should be in straight lines only , up and down hill is also very good
 
Yes well i found that one out the hard way! lol but lunging is what the vets told me to do with her!! 10 minutes a day, every day...and it made her worse!(no surprise hey?!) we've done some hill work with her but not really got a lot of hills round here! lol Other than that its just all been in hand up and down the farm tracks.
 
Long trotting on a straight line is the best exercise for strengthening the stifles. As said, longe line work is about the worst possible thing for a horse with stifle issues. When she is turned out, how big is the area she is in? Does she do a lot of running around when she's out, or does she mostly stand/walk? I can see that if she's charging around much that turnout would make her worse too.
 
There is a surgery that can be performed (medial patellar ligament desmotomy). It is quite safe and usually works. As the surgery is pretty minor and done standing, it is generally not expensive.

Dr Taylor
 
I'd say your vet isn't too familiar with the condition.
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It's definitely unusual for her to be better in the stall, I wonder is she warmer there? I ask only because when my gelding who had it was cold he'd hunch up and rotate his stifles outward which just made the problem worse. When working in harness or enjoying a warm day he'd stand straighter and wouldn't have as many problems. Just a thought!

Also, many horses who lock are worse after heavy exercise as it causes inflammation and pain and they will lock up terribly the next day. You want to introduce them to the work slowly and in small doses and build them up with a few more poles each day/a few minutes longer going in that straight line and let them adapt. Anti-inflammatories can sometimes help with that worsening if it's unavoidable.

Leia
 
Thanks. Yes the operation has been considered but its expensive (or maybe only over here... its about £600 which converts to about $985!!) so we are saving up for if we do need it.

She was out all last winter and ended up with 2 big rugs on to keep her warm, she had no muscle tone, no weight on her and i was very concerned. She isn't active in the field that much, she plays a little but before i brought her in she would run around the field trying to get relief from the flies due to her allergy to them, my gelding does her same and he is stabled at night to relieve his discomfort so i did the same for her to see if it helps... maybe where she was running round the field unhappy about getting bugged by the bugs it wasn't helping her stifles?? And maybe cold in the winter was making her seize up.... she still has locking stifles but no where near as bad as they were.. vets are pleased with how she is and monitoring her but i'd be happy to leave her a little bit longer to see if she does out grow it all together (like 2 previous geldings i've got have done) as she is quite lanky.. she looks like she is a shrunken hunter horse (especially as i had to clip her mane off! lol) not a stocky shetland like her mum!!

Do any joint supplements help this sort of thing? Or not?
 
I would say that if she were running around the field because of the bugs that yes, that would likely make her worse. As Leia said, too much exercise--or perhaps I should say exercise that is too strenuous--is likely to make the problem worse. Likewise if the horse gets cold, that will make it worse, also as Leia described.

Some people have said joint supplements help with this in some horses; I'm not sure it really does, since with locking stifle the actual problem comes from the ligament, not the joint--but the supplements may help to prevent arthritis from forming in the joint.
 
Do any joint supplements help this sort of thing? Or not?------Not, but you can try anything you like.

The difficulty with these is that the cause is a poorly made stifle joint. Exercise more or less, injections, more or less weight can all help, but the problem remains.

Surgery comes the closest to fixing the root cause. Certainly don't need to rush into it and you can try all other things, but I bet you get there eventually.

Dr Taylor
 
With maturity she should outgrow that. You say she has grown quickly. Many times the tendons just do not keep up with the bone growth. Make sure that her feet are taken care of and do not let them get long as it could start locking her up again. Is there somewhere you can turn her out so that she can walk it out, say a small paddock area?

It is way too soon to consider surgery. Give her time to grow up.
 

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