Favorite sweat wrap?

Yes I thought the wet towels were to help keep the mud moist so that it stays “activated” for lack of a better word.

For cellulitis, don’t mess around with anything less effective until you are pretty sure the infection is gone or the skin can no longer tolerate the sweat and is sloughing.

I use DMSO + Furacin continuously and change the wrap every 12 hours for as many days as the skin can tolerate (I can usually get 7-10 days), then I’ll switch to 12 hours sweat and 12 hours poultice with clay or dry wrap. This is per my vet’s protocol for my treating my horse for cellulitis. My vet says the DMSO is really good at crossing the skin barrier and transports the furacin into the infected cells, where it can to its antibacterial job. Otherwise, you are just applying the furacin or other product to the skin and it’s not getting anywhere.

I put the sweat on a wet leg and my horse is reactive to it so I have to chase him around the stall. It seems like once I get some pressure on the leg with the standing wrap, it’s not as painful. I apply the sweat, plastic wrap, no bow, and flannel. If I have an area not covered by the wrap (we’ve had swelling into the elbow/chest before), I’ll rub the sweat in that area as well but leave it unwrapped.

If I am just dealing with stretched out tissues and a filled leg post-infection, I use a clay poultice, ice tight, or dry wrap. I do as much turnout and icing/cold hosing as I can because that seems to have more impact on the swelling than the wrap. I also wean off the wraps gradually so the leg doesn’t swell back up and stretch the tissues out again. My horse’s whole right front is permanently slightly larger than the left from a bad case of cellulitis.

And don’t forget to thoroughly wet the leg before applying + rub in really well then layer. You don’t want the poultice to ‘sit’ on top of leg hairs – good skin contact is important. :smiley:

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Ahh!!! I wasn’t doing that!!

I know! :slight_smile: My reminder was like one of those friendly, annoying emails you get from your credit card company: If you’ve already sent in your payment please disregard this message. :lol:

I’ve seen CSU make something that appears to consist of the DMSO / Furacin combo plus the green epsom salt stuff. It is slightly more yellow and more diluted with the other goo so spreads on the leg better.

I tend not to use plastic but because the sweat will irritate my horse’s pink legs fairly easily and because he also eats standing bandages, I just do sweat, cotton, Vetrap, and top and bottom are secured with Elastikon. This can stay on a couple of days if needed. You can get more compression this way as well and is the go-to bandage my vets use for all things acute that need a sweat. They just do this with the DMSO / furacin mix but you could add in the green stuff as well.

I don’t always dry the leg 100% either if I’ve cold hosed first, and it’s been fine. If there’s any hint of broken skin anywhere, I’d wash with Betadine scrub, towel dry, sweat, wrap.

Poultice is good too but I don’t consider politicing the same as sweating a leg.

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Thanks for the reminder… I had no idea rubbing it in would help more.