My Horse Recovers from a Suspensory Pull - I Recover from Knee Surgery

About a month before I had my knee replacement surgery, Golly was showing some slight lameness.  A couple of days off and he was still off but not substantially.   My annual vet visit was coming up anyway so I asked her to add a lameness exam. After watching him go, doing a nerve block and a hands on physical exam, she said it was a suspension pull in the upper part of the right front leg.  Ugggh...

The treatment plan was a month of stall rest and then slowly put him back into work.  Since I was going to be out anyway, we agreed on two months of stall rest since the extra wouldn't hurt and could only help.

The full plan was:

1. Complete stall rest for one month
2. Stall rest for 12 hours and 12 hours in small outdoor paddock for remainder of summer
3. Starting at the two month mark, ten minutes of hand walking for two weeks
4. Ten minutes of hand walking and five minutes of walking under saddle for two weeks
5. Ten minutes of walking under saddle and 2-4 minutes of trotting
6. Adding more trot as he can handle the work

At four weeks past my knee replacement, I recruited friends to begin the hand walking.  I was shocked at how even ten minutes of hand walking left him a little breathless.  Two months of standing still really knocked his fitness level to nothing!

At five and half weeks past surgery I was getting a little impatient so decided to go just a bit faster and add a couple minutes under saddle.   You'd think a horse that hadn't been ridden for two months would be a LITTLE bad his first time under saddle but he was great ..... so.... I was tempted ..... could MY leg handle a few minutes in the saddle?   Since I had the help I went ahead and hopped on and did a quick circle.  The whole thing was painless and easy so I couldn't be happier with our first ride back together.

We won't know how his leg has has healed until he begins the trot work but so far its looking good and he seems happy to be back in the ring.   I have my doc appointment on Friday and plan to ask how it would affect my knee if I had to quickly get off.  If all is good with a quick dismount, I plan to do all the future under saddle work!  Woohoo!

Excuse the outfit - didn't think I would be riding!

Four Weeks After Knee Replacement

Recovery is going well but still seems slow to me.   I was measured at the therapy office yesterday and am getting very good numbers -- full extension and 130 degrees flexed.   This is pretty far ahead of the norm but I think much of that is due to the strength and flexibility I had before the surgery. As a horse owner, you can't tell the horse, "Sorry, my knee hurts today... I'll feed you tomorrow."   So you continue the walking and loading of grain and hay and in the end this helps your recovery.

My New Bionic Knee

I think the pool therapy is also helping.  I have a 30-45 minute routine I follow on the days I don't go to "official" therapy.   It includes deep knee bends at the stairs, stair climbing, swimming laps, walking in chest high water and treading water in the deep end with high knees and full extension.  When I do the high knees while treading water, I can feel the scar tissue "snap" so I think that is giving me some decent improvement in the flexibility.  For one reason or the other its easier to stretch past the comfort level when I'm in the pool.

I'm driving short distances now but since the knee gets stiff at longer distances I don't trust myself to drive longer distances (like an hour).  I also have gone back to feeding the horses giving at least some relief to my good friend who has been shouldering the load during my recovery.  I am able to muck stalls, feed and spread hay but walking the horses is hard!  They just walk too fast for my unstable legs.  I get help when I can but when I do lead them, it looks quite comical.   They are looking at me confused and trying to figure out why we are going so slow and are taking advantage of my speed (or lack of it) by stopping to eat grass.

Front View

My goal is to be back on my horse July 15th which means that Golly, who has been on stall rest due to his suspensory pull, needs to start his controlled ten minute hand walking.  Again, I am relying on fabulous horse friends to do this as I can obviously cannot walk fast enough to provide any therapy to him.   After two weeks of hand walking he is due to start ten minutes of under saddle walking per day which I am hoping I can do.

Last bit of news on my knee is that I am trying to go without pain meds.  This morning I am questioning my decision as there is some decent pain.  I may have to bend and take at least an over the counter med for a few days.

Looking forward to being back on my horse.  Crossing fingers and working hard to get there.