Abcess type lameness

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kassieg

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I'm pretty good with lameness but I'm stumped. Last night 1 of my 4 year olds was pretty lame. No heat anywhere, no cuts nothing. Worse on hard than soft. There was a section of broken fence though so not sure if she could have pulled it.

This morning after being stabled bad, again no heat no swelling, walked it off to a certain extent, again better when on the soft.

Brought her in tonight having them managed to jump the fence ( can't be feeling that bad!!!) Walking pretty well then onto the concrete then bad again.

In my gut it feels like abcess lameness but cold hosed just in case & have poulticed overnight so we shall see

But please put my overactive mind at rest, if there was anything else then there would be heat or swelling or something (rationally I know this)

I've been responsible of yards full of horses & their vetinary care so please not silly comments. If nothing comes from the poultice & she's no better I will be getting a vet out.
 
I hope it is an abscess, but I've not noticed a real difference when any of the horses I've known with abscesses move from soft to hard ground. The only horse I've known that had a dramatic improvement on soft ground compared to hard, had a bone injury.
 
I wouldn't say its a dramatic improvement but I noticed the change.

That was my only other thinking was a fracture but I would have thought there would have been some heat there whereas there wasn't at all
 
Abscess (generally) land toe down - i.e., they try and tip toe along. Fracture (pedal bone) generally heel first.

Edit:I know they can be numb-nuts, but you'd have thought a horse with a fracture would try and avoid jumping as that's going to be a really sharp, shocking pain as opposed to the cycling throb of an abscess.
 
Ahhh that's interesting I didn't realise that! She is very on her toe so possibly an abcess. Fingers crossed. Vet is coming this afternoon
 
My TB is pretty much always better on soft ground than hard when he has an abscess. I am in a similar situation to you at the moment that mine is very marginally lame off fore for 2 or 3 steps and is more noticeable on the turn, but then he will be sound again for days. No heat, swelling or pain in the leg. The only symptom is that the vein on the inside of his leg is very slightly raised and there is a little heat on the inside of his hoof, but even this is intermittent. These symptoms are absolutely typical of my horse when he has an abscess/corn. I know this, but I have still been panicking about soft tissue injuries! My farrier saw him today and said that his soles are very soft at the moment (damn wet weather!) and he feels that there may be a corn lurking but there's nothing we can really do about it until it shows itself properly. I'm frantically applying iodine to harden his soles, but if it's going to happen I hope it hurries up-last time he was lame for a month and our BD winter regional is at the beginning of March... Good luck with yours, I hope it all works out.
 
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