MANICA FLEXORA AND DISPLACED HOCK

Another busy week had meeting old and new clients.  I had two very interesting horses with interesting injuries that are not unheard of but not common either

The first underwent surgery for a damaged manica flexoria.  In English, this is a tubular sheath on the bottom of the fetlock region, through which the tendons of the deep digital flexor muscle pass. The surgery involved removing the damaged manica flexora.

 In the process of this surgery, the horse was put under general anesthetic and moved around by his feet to and from the operating theatre resulting in very sore shoulders, back and pelvis.  Imagine weighing 10 times what you do and then being held upside down by your ankles for a bit.  He is now walking out much more comfortable and with a 70% chance of returning to previous levels of work, I wish him all the best.

The second is a wonderful horse that had a very bad trailer accident 2 years ago resulting in the displacement of flexor tendon off the point of the hock.  It generally takes a good 2 years for the tendon to re-attach itself to the hock, normally in a different position, leaving the horse with an abnormal gait.  I have known two previous horses with this type of injury, both polo ponies.  One returned to match fitness, the other was unfortunately not given enough time to recover suffering further repairable damage.  

When I first treated Bailey end of last year, he was very stiff and blocked through his back, and built up so unevenly, even ignoring his abnormal gait, he was walking in a banana shape.  I suspected that his liver and kidney may also not be functioning correctly due to how blocked his back was and suggested his owner call in Equine Iridologist and Zoo pharmacologist Catherine Edwards.  Bailey underwent herbal treatments for liver and kidney detox.  Poor lad then had a host of issues, none of which related to his injury.

So back this year to follow up treatment and what a difference!  If was my hope to just loosen off his back so that he can be more comfortable and return to walk hacking.  He has surpassed my expectations and is much more looser and suppler than I had dreamed he could be and is happily hacking out, and wanting to trot and canter! Way to go Bailey.  Here’s hoping he has a couple more years of fun times ahead.