Baffling Lameness...Absolutely Heartbreaking.

jaspejoo

jaspejoo

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Prepare for a long one!

So my 12yr old ISH Galaxy has fallen lame again on his off fore. Got the vet on the way on monday, but we were holding off incase it was an abscess or something minor and to avoid having another black strike against his name after a very checkered past with lameness.

The lameness he is showing is a very strange one. He trotted lame 3 weeks ago and was field rested for the first 5 days. During this time i was on holiday but the person looking after him told me he went from hopping lame in walk to only lame in trot and then back to hopping lame in walk from day to day so his lameness was really fluctuating.

When i got home, he could hardly walk out of the field so i put him on box rest for a week. He is showing no heat, no swelling and has no rection to hoof tests. So following advice from the farrier and friends, i put him on a week of bute incase the lameness was caused by a swelling that needed taking down.

After this week he returned to not being able to walk again, so we are now getting the vet out to look at him. He is still showing no heat, no swelling, no reaction to hoof tests, he has full mobility of his limb and we have looked for an abscess and found nothing.

Another factor to add into it, when he is on box rest, he will walk out of his stable and be immediatley sound, then once he has walked up and down a llittle, his lameness gets slowly worse and worse untill, on a bad day, he can hardly walk. Some days he will get progressivley worse in trot and show nothing in walk.

It is just so baffling and it is breaking my heart to see him in so much pain. My farrier is thinking it may be a cracked pedal bone because of how suddenly the lameness came on.

I just wondered if anybody else had had an experience with their horse showing such a lameness and what the outcome was? And if anybody has any ideas as to anything i can do to relieve the pain in the short term before the vet sees him. I'm just hoping and praying the vet will have some answers on monday because i can't bare to see him in pain :(

Cookies and Milk for anybody who gets to the end :) Thanks for reading :o
 
This does sound baffling, completely. I honestly have no idea what to say, apart from I'm really sorry it's happened.
Does sound like the vet could be onto something there with a cracked pedal bone, it would settle when he doesn't move a lot, then it would be jiggled and hurt when he moved. :/
 
From what you've said it does sound as if there could be a crack/fracture of some sort. If he can't be seen until Monday I would be inclined to do total box rest on a good bed of shavings/litter, reduce feed down to hay only and not walk out at all as that seems to make it worse.
I also wouldn't give bute as you want the vet to see him as he is, not if it is masked by pain killer plus it gives the benefit of if they're in pain, they're not as likely to move around anyway.
Will be interested to hear the results (it does sound like you need x-rays/scans after this length of time)
 
No idea jaspejoo, but just wanted to say I know how you feel as I've currently got Dolly in hospital having investigations into sudden intermittent lameness behind with no heat or swelling, and I know exactly how you feel.

Is there no way the vet can come out before Monday? If not I think I would keep him in until then. If you do give him bute make sure you stop it at least 24 hours before the vet comes so it is out of his system and doesn't mask any symptoms.

Good luck and I hope you get some answers.
 
Our lad was like this over Christmas and New Year. "footie", then definitely lame on lt fore, then sound, then unable to weight bear.
Vet thought bruising and then abscess, poulticed - nothing - but improved. Turned back out - lying down with foot in the air! Vet back out - fractured pedal bone as no reaction to hoof testers and no pus last time. We could not get to have him xrayed due to deep snow and ice so box rested him and poulticed some more - after 2 days pus!!! lots of it from the frog area. He was sound a couple of days later.
I really hope you find the same. It just sounds very similar. I have only seen one horse with a fractured pedal bone but he was so lame all the time it was completely different.
Good luck.
 
I was thinking 'pedal bone' all through your post so I think your farrier has probably got it right. I have had two horses with a fractured pedal bone. One came right after only 10 weeks, the other took 6 months box rest before she was sound as I believe her fracture was higher up the bone. But both horses went onto regain full athletic soundness with no recurrance of lameness due to the pedal bone injury. It makes sense that the lameness increases after exercise and decreases after box rest. The prognosis (if it is pedal bone) is pretty good as the hoof acts as its own splint so long as the horse can cope with the confinement.
 
A floating bone or cartilage chip in the joint can produce exactly the same symptoms. My horse would go from sound to on-three-legs and back to sound again. Always sound when the vet came of course!
 
It could still be an abscess. My mare was about to be sent for x-rays when an abscess finally burst. This was after two Vets and one farrier said that it wasn't an abscess and she also had no reaction to hoof testers.
 
cptrayes said:
Always sound when the vet came of course!
Click to expand...

Typical ey :rolleyes:

Thanks for all your advice and support. He is on complete box rest as of last night and is no longer on bute as we have ran out, but ive ordered him some herbal remedies to give him once the vet has been as i don't want them to mask anything before he comes out. Ive got him some naf devils relief, meadowsweet, comfrey leaves and a tri oil supplement to stagger across his feeds for the day. I give him dengie apple chaff as the MJ value is so low that if i just give him a little less hay then he can have a couple of scoops of chaff which only adds around 6MJ to his daily allowance. I'm just hoping it comes out to be a deep abscess or even a fractured pedal bone wouldn't be so awful because of the prognosis. I just hate seeing him in so much pain :(
 
i have a gelding that last week came in on 3 legs, to start off with we has a bit of swelling but then nothing then he was ok in walk, but hopping in trot, during this he also got colic so had 3 days in, then went back out and back to square one.

tried poltice as vet thought treat for abcess but nothing, farrier out. nop not an abcess vet out to ultra sound ..

vet had a dig in hoof and found a tiny hole with a bit of dirt in, horse now has gapping hole in hoof:eek: but vet didnt think it was enough to cause degree of lameness and also the getting better, then hopping again didnt tie in.

so he nerve blocked hoof, pastern and fet lock. horse still hopping, will say here after the intial swelling which was a tiny amount there has been none.

vet now thinks he has pulled/torn ligaments in the shoulder area. oddley enough the farrier thought the same thing.
 
Hi, my friend has just gone through almost exactly the same thing. Horse came in from field very lame, only he had a massive swelling from the right side of his sheath down his whole right hind. Vet out, found some huge bites on area, so thought bad reaction to a bite, given anti-biotics.

Swelling went down, horse still lame. Then sound. Then lame, vet booked for later in week. Chiro/bodyworker out, horse was sound walk and trot. Farrier came out, trimmed a bit short and next day vet out again and horse lame again in trot, okay in walk. Process kept repeating, vets completely baffled. Abcess found but problem kept re-occurring.

4 weeks after initial swelling, the horse finally went into the vets this week for nerve blocks and x-rays and they finally found that he has cracked a sesamoid bone. So 8 weeks box rest then re-xray. So relieved to finally have a diagnosis after all the stress and worry. The vet believes that with the horse flies around, he had been stamping so hard on hard ground that it cracked.
 
Similar thing happened to a mare on my old yard. She went from being hopping lame to just a littlke bit off. Vet diagnosed thw wrong leg to start with, she eneded up in hospital for an mri as no one knew what was wrong and turned out shed chipped a bone. I dont know what bone.... But shes back in work now. Shell never be the same again im afraid and has to have devils claw in her feed, but shes still jumping and sound :) She was a BSJA horse and now is more of just a "normal" horse. If that makes seense. So dont panic too much :) Im sure it will all work out ok in the end!!!
 
I had a very similar thing happen to my mare. She came in hoping lame one night and I thought I'd get the vet in the morning...come morning she walked out completely sound :eek: Hence didn't bother with the vet.

A week later on the Thursday again hopping lame so booked vets for the morning. She came out sound again! This went on for 7 weeks and the vets nor farriers could find anything. I was riding as normal but every Thursday night she would come in lame!

Finally vets suggested a full work up at the horsepital and they found a fractured pedal bone and quite a wide crack too! Complete box rest for 3 months and bar shoe fitted to keep the hoof stable to aid healing and she came fully sound and I had many years with her and no problems. I would definately recommend getting xrays asap. Good luck and hope it is something simple to sort. :)
 
Thanks for al your replies every one. Its nice to know im not the only one out there with a similar type of problem! Im hoping that he will be as lucky as all of yours if he has got a cracked bone and he will be back to his old tricks again in a few months!
 
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