anyone know anything about cellulitis? *long, sorry!*

Splish & Masons mum

Splish & Masons mum

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My old boy has been on/off sound since being in Potters Bar with an undiagnosed infection at Christmas. nothing severe, just sort of sliding his hind feet out slightly when he walked - hard to describe, but he wore the toes of his back feet (unshod) square. so we has his back shoes put back on, and since then he's been mostly sound, but sometimes absolutely hopping lame.
Our vets was having a new digital X-ray machine installed, and so they suggested we wait for it to be ready, as the digital x-rays would be much clearer. Anyway, he came in the other week with what looked like a puncture wound on his fetlock, the vet was coming out anyway that day so we got her to have a look. She said it looked like something was trying to come out of it, and suggested we poultice it. We did this for a few days, but nothing exciting came out. then his fetlock really swelled up - I mean really - it looked like he was trying to smuggle a cricket ball down there.
So 2 weeks ago, the x-rays were done - and good news, no arthritic changes, no bone fragments, nothing - the legs of a 10 year old!
But with the ultrasound we could see lots of pockets of fluid, and the diagnosis was cellulitis, so he's had to have 4 days of penicillin (he didn't like having that injected!) followed by 10 days of equitrim.
He's just finished the equitrim today, and the swelling has started to go down, but not by much, and he's still lame on 1 bute a day.

Does this sound normal? are we expecting too much too soon? it really was very swollen.

The vet is sending over some different antibiotics tomorrow - can't remember what they are, but I'm a bit worried that all these antibiotics/danilon are likely to damage his liver. (he had raised liver enzymes after his stay in PB due to the IV antibiotics, and they are slightly up again now)
He's also been to have a cold, salt water spa, as recommended by the vet for tendon injuries, and has another booked for the weekend! He's not spoilt at all!

Has anyone else ever had any experience of this or anything like it?

Muchos cookies, and chocolate brownie for reading, extra sprinkles for anyone who replies!
 
My boy had cellulitis a few years ago - he had come in from the field with a fairly minor kick, luckily the vet was at the yard at the time and dressed and bandaged his leg. As suggested, I turned the horse back out but he must have got some sand/dirt down the bandage which rubbed and ended up causing cellulitis.

Tam's leg was severely swollen up to the elbow and had yellow discharge oozing through the skin (nice). Vet back out, bute and trims and he was right as rain in a few days, certainly the swelling went down within 24 hours.

It sounds like your vet is on the ball, I would go ahead with trying different antibiotics and try not to panic about his liver, I am sure the vet would let you know if he was very concerned about the blood results.

Good luck, I'm sure you will see a dramatic improvement with the correct antibiotics!
 
mine got this years ago following servere mud fever type thing (in the summer of all times!)

swelled up one morning from his fetlock to up past his hock like a tree trunk - scared the bejesus out of me

given antibotics and bute and it went down fast


well apart from the tendon running from his hock - silly git was having a good rub at the m/fever and lifted a heavy five bar gate off its hinges on onto his tendon so something intially easy to sort turned into a year of rehab!
 
Mine had cellulitis however she had it in her back, she also has liver issues like yours so had to be careful what i give her and still have to. She spent nearly a month on danilon and antibotics alongside a steriod cream to rub into area 3 times a day. Her next bloods came back with only a slight raise again nothing much for vets to worry about.
 
My old horse got it one summer, came in hopping lame with leg like tree trunk! Vet found some scabs around fetlock and pastern. I had to hibiscrub it every day, she had some antibiotics and her legs were bandaged at night to stop them swelling more.
She was Sound after a few days although it took a month for the swelling and the scabs to completely go.
On a totally different note, she got an infection in the skin of her stomach after a
peritoneal tap. It tool 3 sets of antibiotics to get rid of that, the bacteria was really persistant.
I don't know if that helps at all.
 
as said above, dont panic if the first lot of antibiotics dont work. My old pony needed 2 courses before it was properly kicked into touch. I was also advised we may need to try a different antibiotic but luckily did not get that far. I think it can sometimes be quite persistant.

i was advised to massage the area a couple of times a day and do lots of walking in hand on a firm surface as this aparently assists in draining the lymph fluid.

good luck
 
my boy suffered with reccurent cellulitis last winter due to an allegy (still dont know what to), and each time he had to have 10 days of norodine to clear it.
as much as you can, keep him moving to help drain the fluid as the less swollen it is, the less painful it is-the first time it happened i wasnt sure what it was, inadvertently restricted movement and in the end the swelling got so bad the skin started to burst opne!yikes! so keep him moving to reduce the pressure on the skin.

some people cold hose but i found it chapped the skin and made it worse.

my vets made me up a bright green antibiotic and steroid cream which i slathered on twice a day to try and attack the infection externally as well as internally.

:touchwood: last 2 times we have caught it at the hot and slightly puffed stage and got him covered in green cream and moving and have managed to get it down without needing norodine.
 
thanks to everyone, you've put my mind slightly at rest!
Lila, I'm not sure if it's the same as lymphitis... I think it's the infection of the tissue cells around the tendons and ligaments in the joint, hence the antibiotics to try to reduce infection, and danilon to reduce inflammation. not sure what lymphitis actually is...
fingers crossed that the new antibiotics work, and thanks again, it's always reassuring that other people have had similar experiences
 
I think that cellulitis and lymphangitis are one and the same – or that’s what my vet suggested. My boy had a bad case a couple of winters ago. Came up one morning and hind leg the size of an elephants, really scary. Bute and iv penicillin given and box rest, with short periods of walking in hand prescribed. However after four days the swelling hadn’t gone down much at all even though he seemed to feel better in himself so I turned him out for a few hours which brought the swelling down quite a bit. Then spoke to the senior vet who suggested that this was probably the best course of action so he was turned out as normal from then on. Leg was back to normal size after three days.

Never did find out where the infection had got in – probably a tiny cut on hairy leg? Didn’t ulcerate luckily. Keep a much closer eye on legs now though as I believe that they are much more likely to get it again once they’ve had it once. :(
 
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