One evening I noticed my horse (23 year old 1/2 arab) standing on three legs to eat his dinner. Went to bring him inside the barn from his run and he hopped. Took three of us to help him inside to a stall where promptly laid down. Vet was called. He would eat and drink if I brought it to him. Vet checked his hind foot. Giant abcess. Photo worthy for vet’s “special book.” He gave Raalph meds to hopefully prevent laminitis since he was that painful. Farrier came next and took pictures. He wore a shoe with hospital plate for two weeks that I would unscrew, medicate, and put back on. Long before cell phones existed so I don’t have any pictures of course! After that he was sound and lived another 12 years with not a single abcess again!
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Oh gosh, that is such a freak way to get an abscess! Yeah for it healing up fairly quickly!
Thank you for the well wishes too!
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Ha, ha, ha, doesn’t that make you gulp when you have a case worthy of a photo?? Yeah for it resolving fairly quickly.
Of course!!! Please report back on what is found in your horse’s situation. It’s so unnerving to experience lameness we can’t easily diagnose or account for. I think we all can agree to that!
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I have a thin soled OTTB who seems to abcess a couple to 3 times a year at least. Most recent one was from early this spring, he pulled his front shoe off and then stone bruise. He was extremely sore for several days. Took 2 weeks until he was right again.
Our farrier does not reccommend soaking at all for these, we wrap with moist animalintex (sp) untill it resolves and put pads on the front spring-summer months to help with the thin soles. My husband is an expert wrapper, his can stay on for several days, he adds some duct tape over the toe to help each day as ours are turned out all night.
Good luck to you and your horse!
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Coffin Bone Infection - Possible Round 2
My worst abscess stories (2) are both with the horse from the above thread and both times played out similarly but the second round was worse (possibly due to age or due to undiagnosed at the time Cushings - I acted faster the second time to get her into the hospital given her history, the first time I had no idea what could/ would happen and it seemed like a normal abscess). She’s definitely an outlier, but has instilled a nice big fear of abscesses in me. It may be overkill but this horse will ALWAYS get X-rays for abscesses now.
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Abcess/rot… my late mare had pour-in pads for awhile. Well, we went to reset them, and the entire white line was… mushy. It wasn’t white line, it had the feeling of clay or something. Once farrier was done paring it out, it was at least 1.5" deep and went all the way around the foot. Like the sole and the walls had a moat between them.
She was never lame, and the hoof wall didn’t crack off… but god, that was scary. Has made me gunshy on pads forever more.
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My horse had an abscess blow out his knee 
He was non weight bearing one day, hopping around three legged for two days, and NQR for about 2 1/2 months.
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I believe most abscess are from hell. The waiting and not knowing if, when or where it will burst…
The only one that wasn’t was when I went to lunge my mare and found her off very slightly behind. I picked up her foot and in cleaning out the cleft along the frog, my pick sunk in a little bit and a tiny amount of pus/ blood came out. She was immediately sound from then on.
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Back home and today the Intern vet tag teamed with primary vet. Hoof testers were conclusive for pain but pain everywhere. Radiograph once again did not show any pocket. So they went back to the two sites on the sole identified on Thursday and the site between the point of the frog and the toe yielded a large amount of the Nectar of Lameness- pus. 
Flushed, wrapped and given antibiotics along with the discharge orders.
Afterwards we all peered at the radiograph wondering why in the heck nothing was visible to suggest “Dig here”. Anyway, good vetting on a quirky thing.
Thank you for sharing your abscess stories and I’m selfishly hoping mine won’t become a protracted one like some of yours have been.
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Yaaaayyyyy! I may have missed this, but did you take your horse to the state vet school?
I’m suspecting and hoping that if your horse is on abs and you are wrapping and changing the wrap regularly and following the discharge orders (which I’m sure you will), your horse will be fine sooner than later.
Yaaay for pus! Hahaha! Did the vet mention any opinion on what could have caused this?
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No, used local equine specialist who have successfully helped me in the past. We are using Exceed for antibiotic and have no idea what caused this.
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I also have a sprung shoe and stepped on the clip abscess story…happened the afternoon before his pre-purchase exam. He was not 3 legged but definitely lame and positive to hoof testers at the wound site. And I bought him anyway after he came sound but that took a while (and he did arrive with an eruption point visible at the coronary band.
Recently had a non-weight bearing one with my other horse in a front limb near the heel. Took a couple rounds of Excede. Not able to dig it out and not that satisfying at all since it drained very slightly some black goo near the frog after poulticing and soaking a couple of days. No major blowout, but the lameness improved pretty quickly after the second antibiotic shot. Wound up using Hawthorne’s Sole Pack or Animalintex since the green Epsom salts poultice packing made his whole leg hot and his lameness worse. He’s also one who will get a slightly infected superficial scratch and act like he has a broken leg. And he’s not even the red horse!
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Mine abscess from hell story started with a major bone bruise, continued through several abscesses with xrays, major antibiotics, etc and ultimately ended with a part of her coffin bone deteriorating into nothing. Knock on wood- she is sound and currently competing in endurance. She preforms great in hoof boots
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Holy cow, that sure progressed in a crazy way. Yeah for soundness and hood boots!
Not an abscess from hell, just a bizarre presentation. About 2 weeks ago, when my mare went to pee, she just could not get her RH positioned comfortably. She’s old and has a lot of arthritis, but I’d never seen her struggle to just pee. She was sort of hopping, peeing, hopping, peeing, and it seemed like she just couldn’t balance her RH enough to stay still.
A couple days later, she blew an abscess at the coronary band on her RF. She’d not been lame on it, and once the abscess blew, she was able to stand and pee normally.
BO and I figured out that when she pees, she puts most of her weight onto her front end. So her RF probably really hurt when she was peeing, and that caused all the shifting around.
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I’m absolutely jealous about your mare taking care of the abscess on her own! Well done and saved you some $$!
Yah- it’s never good when your vet (who is part of a large equine only clinic in a very horsey area) says I’ve never seen that before… sigh horses lol
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Glad you guys found the culprit and your horse is on the way to healing.
If you deal with this again, (I hope you don’t!) I seriously think Animalintex pads are the best thing ever in drawing out abscesses. I’ve had some nasty ones that invariably ended up being a combination of thin soles and trim caused and those pads work serious magic. If I pack and wrap with one and turn them out, they blow within 2 days, usually on the end of the first day.
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I do the Animalintex pads and throw in a handwarmer for good measure to keep things cooking.
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