18 year old gelding struggling with lameness for 3 years...should euthanasia be next step if no improvement soon?
(Sorry it's long, there's a TL;DR at the bottom if you want to skip the full rundown)
This horse sustained a 75% tear of his superficial flexor tendon a few summers ago while goofing off in the pasture.
We treated aggressively for a year with vets along the way, and he was doing great. He was cleared to return to work. We started back up very lightly, but as we began to ask more of him the lameness returned. Another few vets, they said that there was strain but the injury was still healed. The last one recommended about a year of pasture rest to sort itself out. Around this time I had to leave for a job for about a year, and entrusted him in the care of the barn owner. Unfortunately she did not tell me it had gotten bad again, and when I returned, we were back to an obvious lameness at the walk.
I moved him across the country to live with me, and had an equine specialty clinic look at him. His tendon was still in good shape, though the ultrasounds showed some abnormalities. They were looked at by 3 different vets, and there was nothing conclusive, but they elected to drain a fluid pocket that had formed over the tendon and inject it with antibiotics.
That seemed to do the trick, and he was suddenly sound all of last month, to everyone's surprise. After stall rest, plenty of handwalking, and trotting consistently sound, the vet gave the okay to turn him back out in a small pasture and have him return to work.
I pulled him in a few weeks ago, and his leg was hot and swollen. A different vet from a very reputable state hospital looked at him, and there were lesions on the same tendon in the area of the original tear. Basically, back to square one.
He is on complete lock-down stall rest at the moment, for the next few weeks. From there we have a plan in place if he continues to improve, but I'm not optimistic...his leg was cool and wasn't swollen since about Friday, but tonight it's back to being hot and swollen again. I called the vet, she said to continue with the timeframe we set out and reevaluate in 60 days.
I don't know if I'm just tired of fighting this with seemingly no end in sight. It just seems like at this point it's inhumane that he's only sound if he's on 24/7 lockdown, and he's been having to deal with pain almost constantly for 3 years. He hasn't lost his fight, he's the same old sassy, bright self, minus some weight loss and muscle atrophy from stall rest. But this doesn't seem to be getting better.
Am I overreacting by thinking euthanasia may be the next step, if there is no improvement in 60 days? I carefully brought it up with the vet tech and she seemed to think that it wasn't necessary yet, but it was hard to get across to her the extent of the issue. Budget is also becoming a major concern with full stall rest, if that matters. I'm about maxed out on a credit card with the vet visits alone.
TL;DR: Horse has been battling lameness issue off and on for 3 years, reinjured original tendon tear, not seeing a positive prognosis. Is euthanasia an overstep, if there is no major improvement in the next 60 days?
Submitted March 20, 2018 at 11:04PM by runforest19
via reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/Horses/comments/85zlva/18_year_old_gelding_struggling_with_lameness_for/?utm_source=ifttt
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