Sitting at work at the beginning of an eight-hour shift on a Saturday morning, I definitely wasn’t expecting any news from the barn. But I got some, Stryker’s hind right leg was swollen. UGH! I had just gotten done dealing with the vet that Thursday because he’dbeen off and on lame on his front feet. Luckily the front-end problem was an easy fix, thin soles. However, the hind leg would not be such an easy fix. I rushed out to the barn after work, and came to find Stryker’s leg was definitely swollen. Not just a little stocked up, like, his leg was close to twice the size of his other hind leg. So many things were going through my mind, “He got bitten by something, he hurt it in his stall overnight, he hurt it yesterday in the pasture, he couldn’t have broken it…. He’s putting weight on it, which means it can’t be broken… right?”
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| Not Strykers leg, but he had similar swelling. |
He was obviously stiff on the leg, but he was putting weight on it. What worried me most was that he didn’t want to bend his hock; instead he was trying to swing the leg around to walk on it. I took him into the wash rack and ran my hands up and down the leg. The swelling began around his stifle area and went all the way down the leg, and where there was swelling, there was heat, lots of heat. The hottest area was centralized right around his hock, where he did have a small (small as in tiny) hock sore. I cold hosed the leg and called the vet. After describing Stryker’s situation the vet immediately came up with Cellulitis. Now, I for one had no clue what Cellulitis was, the vet (who seemed unalarmed by the whole thing) recited how I should care for it and set up a prescription for him. I hung up the phone, at ease since the vet didn’t seem to be worried, and immediately googled Cellulitis. In the simplest terms, Cellulitis is an infection of the subcutaneoustissue (tissue just beneath the skin). Often Cellulitis causes swelling, heat and tenderness in the affected limb, and once contracted, the horse can be more susceptible to the infection in the future *face palm*.
So, the route I chose to care for the leg was rather simple, just time consuming. In the beginning when the leg was at its worst, I gave him a dose of UlcerGard every day, and supplemented with Bute on the bad days. Everyday would cold hose the leg for about 10-15 minutes and wash the leg with something similar to Betadine, hand walk him,medicate his small cut, and poultice the entire leg. Although most say to wrap poultice with standing wraps over the quilts, I wrapped with vetrap. DON’T WORRY, I was very careful to not tourniquet my horse’s leg. You may think it is impossible to turn a horse out with a fully wrapped leg (yes including the hock) but you, my friend, are incorrect. I didn’t want Stryker standing in his stall, I couldn’t imagine how stiff the leg would get with no movement, so we put him out in a small paddock with a buddy, and I had no problems with the wrap. By the way, I spent 6 months in Florida, and I really thought I was good at wrapping, but let me tell you, wrapping a wounded leg from top to bottom every day for 3 weeks really brings out the inner wrapping-queen that’s in us all. Anyway, like I said, I wrapped everything that was hot after cold hosing. So the whole leg was wrapped for about 1 ½ weeks, and then it was just the hock plus directly above and below it for about a week and then the hock was wrapped by itself for another week and a half. Then I took the chance and let the leg go. About every other day I would throw some poultice on for a night with no wrap. But all in all, the leg was feelingnormal. Except, of course, for a small rash he got because of all the wrapping. That was an easy fix though; clean the leg, dry the leg, medicate as needed.
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| Wrapping in action. |
Now it was time to try to get back to work. I had been hand walking him and there was no lameness in the walk, some occasional stiffness, but nothing that really worried me. So, it was time to trot. I took him out on the lunge and on day 1, he was lame when going left with the bad leg on the outside, but with the leg on the inside he was fine. I gave him a few days and he looked stiff going left but no limp. Another few days later and I pushed him in the trot and saw nothing at all, he practically told me he was feeling better with the upright tail, snorting and prancing (definitely a sight for sore eyes). Today, another week later, he is back to work on the lunge with side reins. At this point I’m focusing just on forward, stretching and obedience. Yes, he still has an attitude. I plan to get on in a few days and get him back to work to rebuild and get back to where we were with his training. Unfortunately, I missed the schooling show in September, but I’ll be able to make it to a clinic at the end of November, which is when you can expect another post.
