Swollen knee? Horse is not lame

[dungrulla]

Saturday I went to go spend some time with my darling tennesse walking horse gelding and found him a little lame when I went to lunge him so I pulled his tack and checked him over…his knee was a little swollen so I cold hosed it, gave him some bute, put him inside, etc.

I wanted to call the vet then, my trainer (who knows I am extremely prone to working myself up over nothing and is a blessing) suggested I wait a day and see how he looked.

By the next day he was sound again, and it’s now Wednesday but the knee is still swollen. I discussed it with my vet, she doesn’t seem to think it requires attention. It doesn’t bother him, isn’t hot, etc. I’ve been going out to cold hose it and put diclofenac on it in order to help the swelling and he’s been put in more limited turnout (since nobody in this situation felt that stall rest was going to help rather than just make him more likely to run around on it). It kind of looks like he’s got a golf ball stuck to the inside of his knee. When I press on it it’s not painful, no heat, he doesn’t resent having the limb handled, etc and like I said, no lameness.

I suspect what happened is he banged it and now the tendon sheaths or some other structure in there is swollen, and the internet tells me if the horse isn’t lame this can take forever to resolve but isn’t a problem that’s going to cause him long term harm, but of course I hate looking at it and am a worrywart.

This horse has a devastatingly hard job. I am an adult ammy with physical limitations, and he goes on walk-only trail rides a couple times a week. Sometimes a kid rides him in lessons and then he has to walk in a circle.

Has anyone else had a horse do this, and did the swelling ever go down? Mind you it’s only been about four days.

[luvmyhackney]

I’d probably have the vet out to ultrasound if it didn’t go down after a couple of days. Even if just for a baseline to measure the swelling.

[dungrulla]

I probably will tbh. I have the ability to trailer in which generally makes things easier to schedule. She said to give it at least a week–apparently knees get very swollen when horses bang them?

That was my gut and I just needed someone to reinforce it.

[dungrulla]

Update: Horse is still sound. I looked through some old photos and lo and behold, he always had a small lump on his knee. I simply didn’t notice because I never looked…this horse never had a PPE because at the time I bought him I’d been riding him for 8+ months and he never put a foot wrong so for the price I paid for a horse I planned to only walk, I figured it wouldn’t change my answer on him. I don’t know, maybe he stepped on a rock and him being lame for a single day was because of something unrelated to his knee, that’s possible.

It’s been three years and other than this one day he’s still never put a foot wrong, so I’m going to chalk this up to me being not very observant, and maybe get it ultrasounded just to find out what it is.

[EmilyM]

I would check the knee because it is a high movement area and you want to make sure no joint involvement

[dungrulla]

When I spoke to my vet she said most likely answer for swelling there and no lameness is a hygroma. Some of these do communicate with the joint space but there is precious little to be done for them apparently. We will reassess after the holiday.