pelvic fractures... anyone seen this before?

[magoobear]

Hi guys,
Its been a long time since ive posted on here, but been busy dealing with a pelvic fracture in my love of my life 21 year olf thorughbred gelding Mylo. Im happy to say hes doing better than I thought he was after reading on a different blog about peoples experiences with pelvic fractures, He is on all day turnout has put on weight, walks alright and gets around also learned to canter on three legs.. please share your experiences with hip or leg fractures as these are definently more common than vets think they are..... this will be lengthy to explain read or share your story please

heres the back story on this ... originally injured last novemeber (over a year ago) was acutely lame on one hind leg initially clear out of a pasture accident (poor management on the barns part) but I moved him immediately (within 3 days) to self care board and after a weeks rest he was moving around quite well, Initial injury was on thanksgiving day so vet being out of town never got a work up on him that weekend. He did well on the bute I gave him and by the time I trailored him 3 days later he was doing good enough to put up quite a fight to get in the trailer.
Noticed he was afraid of the front bumper bar and as soon as that was removed jumped on the trailer easily. he did fairly well with a new barn and we happened to be in a barn pretty much all alone with two minis nearby. He ended up with an abcess on his uppper thigh that I got the vet called out for about 10 days after initial lamness. Across fornt of upper thigh it was suspected to be from a kick in the pasture. Later I relize this was the draining tract for the initial fracture. he continued to improve even though he was not stall rested, did very well for the next 5 months, had minimal trouble swinging the hind leg forward but other than for the farrier he had no real issues, could trot and canter just fine.
in early April a slip in the hind end (NO fall) while on a lead rope by the barn helper left him very very lame on that same leg.
He did not recover from it and though didnt appear to be in a ton of pain, needed stall rest badly, vet was consulted at earliest opportunity and she called in her expert to do an ultrasound. This board certified specialist did a hip joint ultrasnound only not exploring other areas of the hip at all, he found nothing other than bony changes that should not of popped up this quickly. This was within 5 days of injury in april. I could go on more about this but we changed barns because of a different issue so ended up with a third vet who finally did a rectal exam and found the pelvic fracture... its still very unclear of where the exact pelvic fracture is but I am hoping to do an ACTUAL pelvic ultrasound next and see what we can find. He has crepitis over the hip joint , It can be heard with a stethescope loudest at that point (sad to say after reading about this I was the FIRST person to listen to this) not a vet...
He is doing well these days, on full day turnout in a large paddock, hes a happy boy who never once told me that hes had enough of anything hes been going thru.... countless vets told me to put him down.. but I didnt feel it was his time, he never said it was either, his spirit is so strong and hes just so happy...
He always has a home with me even if he can never be ridden again
Please share your fracture stories to get it out there that these things do happen but it does not have to mean the end
He is an exracer having dropped out at the track due to being too slow, He could of gotten a injury there thou to this leg... I found info that stall confinement at such a young age does affect bone density. This is far more prevalent than we think
Sorry this is so long... its a years worth of info

[ZenRider]

Hey Magoobear! Things are a bit slow here these days. As you can see a few of us are still here and others do pop in from time to time.
As for pelvic fractures and injuries in general are more common then people realize. For some reason people tend to fixate on the legs, as if that is the only part of the horse that can become injured. I believe Equus had an article about pelvic injuries being more common then people think in the last couple of years mentioning the same thing. If you see horses that drag their hind feet it would be a safe bet to guess most of those horses have had pelvic injuries. Unless of course a neurological cause can be found. Meaning, not all horses that drag their hind feet have had a fracture and not all horses that have had a fracture drag their hind feet. Which of course, is where Veterinarians and clincs come in. I'm fortunate, Purdue University n Indiana is not too far from where my boys are and has been a financial saver, as well as a top notch clinic to go to.

As for fractures it's the amount of displacement that will make the difference. The more recent fractures I've seen recently have been my Stepfathers palomino mare Uno who fractured a bone in her hock last spring. Thankfully, according to the Vets the best one to fracture in a hock, if you are going to fracture a bone, and little to no displacement. Not sure if she will return to full reining performance, but she's healthy, apparently sound and at the least he has a pretty practice horse. There is a chance she may rein again as she has healed quite well. They are taking their time with her.

My own more personal experience with fractures was last year when Zen fractured his jaw. Thankfully very little displacement, which is why we didn't figure out his problem right off the bat. He's doing well.

The biggest thing with all fractures is the amount of displacement. The less the better. The more displacement, the more likely for surgery and hardware being installed to aid healing the bone correctly. Which makes things complicated with horses and fractures. Should Zen's jaw had been displaced or Uno's hock, much as it would have been possible to wire the injuries back into position, any external hardware could easily get caught or rubbed causing the bone to become displaced. Which is why such injuries don't generally come with a good prognosis. Thankfully for our horses bad luck, they were fortunate enough not to do anything to make their injuries worst. As it is, the only thing that heals bones is time.

If your horse is not in excessive pain, if he is eating well and cantering about I'd say probably he's not in excessive pain, and you aren't looking to use him as a high level event horse, I'd say you are doing just fine for your boy. Although it's nice to Bute to take away the pain, the pain can be the only thing to help a horse keep from making an injury worst. Especially one that is turned out. As for keeping a gimpy old horse around, a lot of more competitive horse people may never understand why some of us keep damaged or aging 'goods' when we could throw them away for something that could be more 'productive'. I'm not talking finding them a good pasture puff home(those are not easy to come by), but putting them down, or worst dumping them at an auction. Then again, we don't exactly get them either.

As for you, the fact that you have included so many vets in his life to find out just how bad his issue is and more how well it is or isn't healing, shows how much you care about your boy. I'll be interested to hear what the ultra sound reveals.

[ZenRider]

So any good news? Wish more people still came here, but what does one do?