Hello everyone! I thought I would share my horse’s x-rays from last wednesday showing the damage done by a pedal bone infection.
To give a bit of back story: My mare developed an abscess in the summer of 2014 that would come and go. She was sound the majority of time. It wasn’t handled how I would have handled it but that’s irrelevant now and I would prefer discussion around this be minimal - hindsight is 20 / 20.
I then got a message from the barn manager at the beginning of November saying that my horse could not walk. At all. Horse had been sound the day before. I immediately put a call into my vet. Vet came out and diagnosed Pedal Osteomyelitis. I wish I had the original x-rays because they are the horse version of a horror movie. There were multiple vets standing around 'ooh’ing and 'ahh’ing and going “I’ve never seen that before!”.
Needless to say it was bad and the next 3 months were spent aggressively treating this infection. We did not scrape the bone because my vet (who is excellent and very well regarded) did not think it was warranted because it was managed so well - I’m not the best rider, but I am damn good with injuries. The last x-rays we did showed no infection.
Fast forward to two weeks ago. Horse presented just the teeny tiniest bit lame in the right hind. I, of course, immediately panicked. Vet was called and I was given the instructions to treat and if it did not resolve shortly we would do x-rays. It did look like a regular abscess and popped through the heels, but when horse was still slightly lame afterwards, the vet came out.
Here are the resultant x-rays:
You can see how deformed the foot is very clearly in the third photo - the whole missing section at the toe (about 2 inches long) is where the original infection came out of the coronet band in November. In addition to that huge gash, she also had the hole so deep in the toe you could put a hoof pick in, let go and the hoof pick would stand up on it’s own. You can see the tracts made by the original infection in the pedal bone.
The good thing about these x-rays is that it looks like there is no pockets of infection and there is no rotation. It did burst on the 19th of June through the heel bulbs, but it looks like that is resolved.
So right now the mare is on previcox and enrofloxacin (antibiotic which was proven effective through bacterial culture). The foot is wrapped (hoof boots don’t really fit her, or we would be using that). She was put to hoof testers yesterday and showed no signs of pain, but she is still ouchy when she walks. Her soles are very thin and her pedal bone is very sore.
We are optimistic she will be able to return to full work, but there is a chance she will only be pasture sound. She is eight, so fingers crossed everything goes well. Either way she gets whatever she needs.
TLDR: If your horse has an abscess that doesn’t seem right, get it x-rayed immediately. You’ll save yourself a hell of a lot of time, money and worry.
