Horse is grade 1 lame with a stone bruise. I am hopeful that I can still make the show we have planned in 10 days. Honestly, I like my odds, given how minor the lameness seems and how much time we have, but what are your favorite remedies to help heal a stone bruise?
I’m keeping this horse in during the day to minimize fly stomping and packing the hoof with magic cushion, but am hoping there’s something else I can do to speed this up.
Nothing will speed it up. You can make sure the horse doesn’t reinjure it. Is he barefoot? Are the bars overgrown? Is the heel run forward?
If it’s an actual coffin bone bruise I think it takes longer.
If it’s just a regular stone bruise and horse is shod, have your farrier in to put a thin pad on to protect the bruise.
Horses have their ways of altering our plans, don’t they?
I’ve had luck with magic cushion and boots. And lots of fly spray. Like any other bruise they don’t heal if they continue to be subjected to concussion.
As far as speeding it up? I don’t think you can. Hopefully you can make the show.
My horse bruised his feet XC schooling earlier this year. I packed with Magic Cushion daily, and the farrier also suggested packing overnight with an iodine/Epsom salt mix (pack sole, vetwrap and duct tape on top to hold it in). I did two of those packs, alternating with the MC, and it did help. Farrier saw him a week after and the sole had definitely toughened up already and horse was already feeling better.
I did end up putting pads on the front as my horse has thin soles and I didn’t want show season to be off and on if the ground stayed as dry and hard as it had been.
A bit of a shot in the dark here, but it’s inexpensive and won’t do harm if it doesn’t work. My horse has several times presented with what appeared to be the beginning of an abscess. My treatment for abscesses is to use the Animalintex poultice. In all the episodes, the grade 1 lameness resolved within 1 - 2 days of the the poultice with no sign of an abscess having been the cause of the ouchiness, so I’ve always wondered if a stone bruise or some sort of bruising was what was really going on. (My horse now has pads in front for most of each year.)
You can do warm to hot hoof soaks. The heat increases circulation and helps with the healing process. One of my old time vets told me if you hot soak a suspected abscess the horse will get lamer and the abscess will come to a head sooner, however; if it’s a bruise the horse will show improvement in being sore as the heat allows the bruise to heal faster.
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