Was away from the barn for a couple of days and on the last day mare managed to blow up her front left - with heat, swelling - seemingly overnight. Luckily had a vet scheduled for routine vaccines that same day and diagnosed her with acute cellulitis, which I wouldn’t have guessed, because from pictures it didn’t look half as dramatic as the images from google.
Came to see her next day (yesterday), armed with ice, but found very little heat or swelling at all around the cannon bone. The swelling had sort of moved up from the cannon bone to the outer side of the back of the knee in a very small, isolated spot… Made me go hmm… She didn’t mind being touched apart from being a bit bute high and grumpy 
Put her on the lunge and didn’t see anything dramatic. She almost looked fine except on going to right (LH on the outside), where there was slight head bobbing. Walked her and iced her twice - before and after walking.
Fast forward today, no more swelling around the knee, slight puffing (liquid) around the cannon bone, but nothing I’d notice from a distance. No heat. She looked happy and was back to her usual character. Going with the cellulitis diagnosis I thought I’d ride, but just to be sure put her on the lunge first. Going to the left no problem, but she still looked a slight bit funny (bobbing) to the right, so I decided I’d film it and ask her to properly extend the trot to see if anything is exacerbated. She did some beautiful laps in trot, but I rewatched the videos and playing them backwards she definitely looks NQR on the right at the beginning (instinct was correct), but fine to the left. Bobbing improved with extension videos and on the last video at a slow trot to the right it had disappeared. Took off the wraps (with bandage liners underneath) and the legs were beautiful and clean. Iced one more time and she was not complaining.
We’ve been having a lot of wet weather here and she’s been having bad scratches, so today I also finally clipped all four lower legs to keep the legs dry easier and minimise any future infection chances. While I thought she didn’t have an issue on that particular leg, the clipping revealed noticeable dandruff and scabs underneath. She definitely had bilateral swelling on the hinds (also pretty strong) that we resolved with conventional scratches treatments before, so I wouldn’t exactly rule that out as a culprit. The other front had no scabs, so that could well be the reason why it wasn’t bilateral. I guess what I’m trying to say is that there’s definitely a source of irritation/infection that could lead to swelling.
I’m prescribed to basically put her into normal work as soon as she’s not in pain or lame and keep up with her activity to keep the fluid retention in the leg to a minimum. Still the lameness only going to the right, the strange heat below knee joint makes me a tad worried that this might be more serious than just scratches/mild case of cellulitis. Specifically, I have fear that this might be an undiagnosed suspensory issue and in that case the rehab would look very different and trot extensions is the last thing I should ask her to do.
I’ve never dealt with either before, so I guess some contrast between the way the two would resolve and progress would help.
