Abscess article, interesting!

ihatework said:
If you get that severly insulted from one part of a complete paragraph (the remainder of which you have ignored) then you need to get some perspective.
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Probably but I thought that comment childish and nasty unless you were talking to people not involved in this thread.

I read the article in a different way. I shall bow out of this, Abscess threads always end the same way and I never learn to keep quiet.
 
ihatework said:
.for those that stick to that motto, I hope they do break out for you. Because if you get one that doesn't ...
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You make a very big leap from 'it's not a good idea to routinely open an abscess' to 'it's not a good idea ever to open an abscess' don't you?

Anyone who has that little common sense should, of course, call a vet immediately.
 
ester said:
this wasn't a routine abscess though was it? that was going to find its way out and resolve without intervention?

With regards to my xray comment that was for deciding on surgical intervention for a non-resolving abscess.

eta- no, me neither IHW.
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This was my understanding too and I was disagreeing with the sentiment expressed by other posters that opening abscesses is neither necessary nor advisable. And yes, a ripe abscess is usually readily visible on x ray as is pedal bone sepsis. Not the normal route of diagnosing but very useful in persistent cases. In fact I had a case yesterday who has poorly weightbearing, owner had dug about and made it bleed, no response to hoof testers apart from the bleeding area. X ray revealed abscess in duff area, tracking upwards and downwards, lower part opened with hoof knife and drained ok, upper pouch poultices Nd burst during the day. Had been brewing for 6 days before vet was called. In the absence of a painful spot but significant lameness what would you do?

The fact of the matter is you usually need to help an abscess find its way out - fantastic if a day or two of wet poulticing works, but it often doesn't. A horses welfare should always be paramount and to leave a horse in pain just because you want the abscess to work it's way out without being dug out is not fair to a horse. Forgive me if I took it up wrong, but if so what did you mean? Not every abscess responds as we wish and while its fine to poultice and give a little time in the majority of cases, some require a little more invasive efforts, others are surgical. In normal years, only a very small number are complex but there are far far more abscesses this year than in recent years and this means far more complex ones. Keep an open mind.

ETA- the part if the article which discusses the coffin bone degenerating is not exactly true. It is much more complicated than that. Not every untreated abscess will do that - it depends on the depth/location and path of least resistance.
 
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glenruby said:
The fact of the matter is you usually need to help an abscess find its way out.
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This isn't my experience and I know of vets and farriers who have the same point of view.

Regarding horse welfare, have you considered the possibility that the pain is for a reason - possibly to prevent the horse pushing the infection further into the foot and allow it to eat its way out safely?
 
I know all about evolution of pain. Still having a giggle at munching abcess though.
Night all, can't be @rsed to waste my time reading any more arguing.
 
ihatework said:
I know all about evolution of pain. Still having a giggle at munching abcess though.
Night all, can't be @rsed to waste my time reading any more arguing.
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Yrs, munching is a fun way of describing the corrosive nature of abscess fluid that allows eat to eat its way out of the foot, isn't it :) ?
 
well the biologist in me knows lots of evolutionary reasons for pain, I'm afraid I am struggling to get my head round stopping a horse pushing infection deeper into the foot is one of them.
 
ester said:
well the biologist in me knows lots of evolutionary reasons for pain, I'm afraid I am struggling to get my head round stopping a horse pushing infection deeper into the foot is one of them.
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Pressure on the base of the foot?

Discouraged if that pressure is relieved by it causing g pain to put weight on the foot? I'm not saying it's correct but I think we rush to pain relief far, far too easily with our horses.
 
I'm just not sure that pressure on the base of the foot is going to move/increase an infection closer to the bony structures, - I suppose it depends on the original site of infection- ie if white line is pressure on the sole moving the infection sideways towards the pedal bone? - It would also seem to contraindicate the fact that barefooters tend to advocate horses remaining turned out and moving to encourage the abscesss to blow.

I'm only sort of pondering here but am wondering whether barefoot horses are more at risk of the sort of situation described in the article because their feet are tougher and therefore we need the infection to tract round to the heel/coronet band to blow out and rely on it going in the right direction.
 
This is extremely interesting to me as I lost a horse to a pedal bone total degeneration (I'm sure vet said pedal bone but it was 12 years ago and I was pretty hysterical at the time). Basically my horse's foot bones had totally fallen apart. We had had a lot of problems 5-6 years earlier with recurring abscesses that just wouldn't clear, and at that time had a lot of xrays done. Thankfully vet was able to compare the old x rays with the new and felt that the only explanation for the current state of the foot was the abscesses which had effectively corroded the bones without us being any the wiser. We had had about 5 months of constant abscesses and poulticing and severe lameness, which had suddenly cleared up. Until she was on 3 legs 6 years later. Vet seemed fascinated and asked if he could use the case for a study but I don't know what came of it (I was too upset to ask).
 
Interesting, though horrible for you. Can you remember if the abscesses were opened up by human intervention, or did the first one blow by itself?
 
ester said:
I'm only sort of pondering here but am wondering whether barefoot horses are more at risk of the sort of situation described in the article because their feet are tougher and therefore we need the infection to tract round to the heel/coronet band to blow out and rely on it going in the right direction.
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I've wondered this myself, but actually these difficult ones are so rare that amongst all the horses, mine, friends', liveries etc which I have ever known, only one has ever had an abscess associated with a pedal bone infection, and that was shod.

I've had a dozen abscesses in unshod horses, none of which have ever caused a problem with bone infection. The only one I had which took weeks to resolve was opened by a farrier. All the rest blew by themselves and were ovet and Done with, horse back in full work, in days.
 
cptrayes said:
Interesting, though horrible for you. Can you remember if the abscesses were opened up by human intervention, or did the first one blow by itself?
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The first one needed human intervention as she was on 3 legs and very distressed. It was very deep and there was a huge amount of blood and pus, that took days to come out. She was poulticed for ages, and I remember having something called povodine or pevodine(?). The next one popped of its own accord, from a different spot on the sole, and after that I can't remember which ones needed help and which didn't. The vet was there a lot, scratching his head and being baffled. We were even more surprised when they all cleared up and she was fine for years. It seemed the damage had been done though.
 
That's very interesting, thank you. I'm sorry you had such a bad time.

But I would still question, with reference to the article quoted as well, how the vets are so sure that the abscesses caused the degradation to the pedal bone rather than degradation to the pedal bone having resulted in the abscesses.

Maybe the reason the first one was so deep, which is unusual (which is why farriers can open most of them) was that it was a result of something coming out from inside and not of something having got in from outside?

I'm pretty sure that by no means all pedal bone degradation seen on xrays has been preceded by abscessing.

This won't help you, of course, but it still seems to me that the case for opening a brewing abscess early is far from proven, and warnings that failing to do so results in pedal bone infection are scare mongering to say the least.
 
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