Post by spirithawk06 on Sept 13, 2014 22:32:22 GMT
Melody has a small puncture wound on her pastern about 2 inches up from her coronet band on her left hind leg. From her fetlock down was swollen. At first, she could barely put any weight at all on it (hence the fear of a break). The vet suspected an abscess just from descriptions. I iced and soaked her leg multiple times Thursday night when we discovered the swelling and Friday. We loaded her into the trailer this morning. It took a bit, but she didn't give us anywhere near as much trouble as some "well-trained" horses I know and she's not even halter broke. She rode like a champ!
The vet found the puncture right away and as she was pressing to check for foreign objects and to see the extent of the abscess, the abscess started draining right above her coronet band with some off-white fluid. She opened up the puncture wound and it started draining bloody fluid. She was given all of her shots, including a tetanus and a booster was sent home for me to give in 3 weeks. She was given a shot of banamine (don't worry horselady, it wasn't intramuscular). She barely twitched for both shots.
She was put on bute (1 gram 2x a day) and tucoprim (1 scoop a day). I have to soak it with epsom salts and iodine once a day and then put a paste of betadine and sugar (baby poop consistency [her words, not mine lol]). I have to keep her confined until the swelling starts going down and keep the leg dry. I have to wrap it with gauze and then tightly wrap with vet wrap. She wants to see her back in a week.
She doesn't think the puncture was in the joint itself. It narrowly missed hitting right on a major tendon, like no more than an inch off that tendon. She is cautiously optimistic that it didn't hit the joint based on the way the fluid moves. Her right leg is a bit swollen from having all her weight on it. She's not worried about her right leg even though she checked it thoroughly. Hoof testers came back negative (I think that's what she said. She said they were normal and that was a good sign that there wasn't damage inside the hoof itself.) She said that if the banamine brings the swelling down, then the wound is not as likely to be in the joint, so we're hoping the swelling is down when I go to soak and redo her wrappings this afternoon. We aren't sure what she got into that caused the puncture and she said barbed wire fencing could definitely have caused it. We do have barbed wire in the main pasture and sometimes we find sections of it as we're walking. Every so often, it's like a section that was buried works its way to the surface.
She was completely impressed with Melody. That little filly was calm as can be despite all the poking and prodding. The most she did was try to move away from the pain but we were able to keep her still. She had cars passing (the vet checked her outside near the stocks) and didn't freak out at all. I'm thrilled that she was so well-behaved for such a young horse with so little handling. The assistant said they usually have to sedate babies like her for all that Dr. Ozio had to do. She even used clippers to shave the area and Mel didn't even twitch.
I told Anna that I'd really love to be able to see her for routine stuff. She said "I know right?!" Last time, it was for Star's colic. Thankfully, this is something that has a more optimistic prognosis as long as we can get the swelling down and infection under control.
Please excuse the huge halter. She outgrew her foal one and all we had was a yearling halter and no time to go run to the nearest store that carries her size.
The vet found the puncture right away and as she was pressing to check for foreign objects and to see the extent of the abscess, the abscess started draining right above her coronet band with some off-white fluid. She opened up the puncture wound and it started draining bloody fluid. She was given all of her shots, including a tetanus and a booster was sent home for me to give in 3 weeks. She was given a shot of banamine (don't worry horselady, it wasn't intramuscular). She barely twitched for both shots.
She was put on bute (1 gram 2x a day) and tucoprim (1 scoop a day). I have to soak it with epsom salts and iodine once a day and then put a paste of betadine and sugar (baby poop consistency [her words, not mine lol]). I have to keep her confined until the swelling starts going down and keep the leg dry. I have to wrap it with gauze and then tightly wrap with vet wrap. She wants to see her back in a week.
She doesn't think the puncture was in the joint itself. It narrowly missed hitting right on a major tendon, like no more than an inch off that tendon. She is cautiously optimistic that it didn't hit the joint based on the way the fluid moves. Her right leg is a bit swollen from having all her weight on it. She's not worried about her right leg even though she checked it thoroughly. Hoof testers came back negative (I think that's what she said. She said they were normal and that was a good sign that there wasn't damage inside the hoof itself.) She said that if the banamine brings the swelling down, then the wound is not as likely to be in the joint, so we're hoping the swelling is down when I go to soak and redo her wrappings this afternoon. We aren't sure what she got into that caused the puncture and she said barbed wire fencing could definitely have caused it. We do have barbed wire in the main pasture and sometimes we find sections of it as we're walking. Every so often, it's like a section that was buried works its way to the surface.
She was completely impressed with Melody. That little filly was calm as can be despite all the poking and prodding. The most she did was try to move away from the pain but we were able to keep her still. She had cars passing (the vet checked her outside near the stocks) and didn't freak out at all. I'm thrilled that she was so well-behaved for such a young horse with so little handling. The assistant said they usually have to sedate babies like her for all that Dr. Ozio had to do. She even used clippers to shave the area and Mel didn't even twitch.
I told Anna that I'd really love to be able to see her for routine stuff. She said "I know right?!" Last time, it was for Star's colic. Thankfully, this is something that has a more optimistic prognosis as long as we can get the swelling down and infection under control.
Please excuse the huge halter. She outgrew her foal one and all we had was a yearling halter and no time to go run to the nearest store that carries her size.
