Big jingles jangling your way, Beowulf! They do make quite a career out of buggering themselves up. I hope that you get to the bottom of it with this appointment. Which branch of which shoe did he step off? Was it medial?
The good news: vet came on Thursday, he was 100% sound - even with flexions. Vet exclaimed he wished all horses flexed so perfectly. Thinks it was a perfect storm of things: an abscess AND a popped splint, which explains the massive swelling last week. Said he was ready to go back to work. Horse was fresh and feeling good, looked great, and the leg was no longer swollen.
The bad news:
Horse managed to hurt himself really badly last night. Best we can tell, he slipped and fell on his left side. We had a crazy storm last night and we think he must have spooked himself and slipped. He was caked in mud on his left side this AM and dead lame. Vet was called immediately.
He has two punctures; a gash puncture on his shoulder and a scrape+puncture on his loin/hip. The gash puncture is about 2 inches long, and about .5" wide. His hip puncture is about the diameter of a pen, but deep. The actual abrasion site is about three inches long. Ultrasound confirmed ilium wing fracture. The puncture on his hip was deep, the vet extracted a stone from it the size of a pencil eraser. I am so, so unbelievably glad it traveled towards his hips rather than towards his intestines. I cannot even fathom the alternative right now.
Vet stitched the shoulder but left sides open for drainage; the puncture on his hip she extracted a rock from, flushed with saline and found a pocket; he was extremely reactive and even after three Big Boy doses of Dorm was not loving allowing her to explore the wound.
Here are pictures; do not click if you are squeamish.
shoulder puncture: http://i63.tinypic.com/50kw2w.jpg
hip being cleaned: http://i65.tinypic.com/2r4kjsm.jpg
hip puncture: http://i66.tinypic.com/o08cw3.jpg
He is on stall rest for 5 weeks, SMZ, bute, ace… and four months off for the fracture. Horses… :no:
We walked the paddock over and over, and could not find anything that might have done this. We do have some ledge with sparse topsoil (no sharp edges) and we think he must have slipped on the ledge in the storm.
Well Damn
Yowza.
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What awful luck for you and this guy…
Plus the vet du jour visits this week for the hardcore antibiotics.
To steal Misty Blue’s sig line… Equus Makeus Brokeus
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Wow I’m so sorry
Oh drat.
If it’s any consolation, my old horse had a significant gash on his shoulder that went deep into the muscle. It healed with time, and all that was left was a raised scar which wasn’t noticeable. It never caused any issues with his gait.
I will keep my fingers crossed that his recovery is quick and uneventful. Poor guy. That puncture looks nasty and like it would hurt like hell.
OH SNAP Sorry!!! I think we may use the same vet practice…sounds like you and your boy are definitely in good hands!
[QUOTE=chism;8903222]
Plus the vet du jour visits this week for the hardcore antibiotics.
To steal Misty Blue’s sig line… Equus Makeus Brokeus[/QUOTE]
Sorry for the mishap, that will take a while to heal.
Here, this may help:
Jeez I’m speechless. That dang frog sang after all!! I so hope that he heals quickly, cleanly and uneventfully now ; he’s outdone himself on this. Is the fracture stable?
Sorry for the bad luck.
Beowulf, I’m so sorry! Jingles for a speedy recovery!
Horses… argh!
Ouch! Big jingles for a quick and painless recovery!
P.
Well that looks and sounds painful. Poor guy. Kudos to you for taking such good care of him, though. He’s a lucky guy - accident notwithstanding.
Sigh…
Jingles for an uneventful recovery.
So sorry! What crap luck. Jingles for a speedy and full recovery. Horses! How do they even think of these things?
I had one wipe out last summer galloping on wet grass, slide 30 feet and end up under the fence. My boarder saw it happen. He was SO body sore. It took 6 weeks for him to truly be himself again so don’t worry too much if your guy is reactive to touch and even light brushing for a while. I am sure they strain all sorts of muscles when they have a bad accident like that.
I just finished reading this whole thread, and I am so sorry you and your horse have so much crappy luck!
Here’s to a fast and uneventful recovery!
I remember when my Tb mare was young, fresh off the track, almost every week she did “something” in her paddock, even tho she was turned out “in armor”: no-turn bell boots, splint boots, ankle boots AND pastern wraps! I often wished I could bubble wrap her, in those days…
Best of luck to you and your horse!
thank you all for the kind words, jingles and PMs.
no temp this AM! He seems to be much less dull - he’s wanting to know when he gets to go back out with his friends. Eating well, pooping, peeing - his RH is back to being big & fat this AM and his knee is puffy, so we wrapped his hinds & poulticed the knee.
His punctures were cleaned and redressed this AM; the vet came by to give him Gentocin and said he looks much more comfortable.
Here are some pictures of the wound before redressing this AM - vet’s topical of choice was Biozide, that isn’t oozing blood, promise: (no click if you’re squeamish)
shoulder - http://i64.tinypic.com/2hobjwk.jpg
hip - http://i66.tinypic.com/2hek0ub.jpg
It’s incredible how much better everything looks even after only 24 hours. His shoulder’s got some small healing already and the hip is much, much less swollen and puffy looking. He’s still really, really sensitive about cleaning the hip. The hole is still there, but smaller.
I did not catch any after cleaning because I did not want to desterilize my hands. Next time I’ll grab a helper so they can snap while I clean. I’ll be taking pictures daily to c&c.
Oy vey. At least he’s not a pig in his stall - here’s to another four weeks and six days of this cute face greeting me in the stall each morning.
Re: Cayusepapoose - from what we could tell, the vet thinks so but we are going to x-ray – x-ray is going to happen during the re-check. He was so, so reactive when the vet tried to do the ultrasound that we want to wait a week or so for the inflammation to go down before trying to x-ray. There was too much going on yesterday and he wasn’t being a good patient. He was trying, but we think it must have really hurt so we’re opting to do the x-ray to really see once the inflammation and reactivity goes down.
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