Bangaging Knees

[magicmoose]

So The Moose has an infected knee.

The vet has been out and drained the fluid and dosed him up with antibiotics. He also bandaged from above the knee to fetlock, to discourage the swelling from reforming. The bandage lasted about six hours before it slipped down.

Does anyone have any top tips or techniques to keep the bandage up? Are stable bandages better than vetwrap?

 

[Northern Hare]

Years ago a horse of mine tripped and went down on his knees on the road, so I got plenty of experience of bandaging knees, but realise that it might be different to your bandaging requirements.

I found that elasticated exercise bandages were best but you do have to use them with plenty of padding. I used melolin dressing on the actual wound, with clean gamgee over the top of that. Then a large sheet of the washable Fybagee bandaging pads over the top - this was new so had a bit of substance, so the whole lot didn't collapse downwards.

I started bandaging with the exercise bandage above the knee, then did a sort of figure of eight bandage with the cross over points on the outside and inside of the knee, so leaving only the gamgee and Fybagee over the front of the knee - so no pressure from the bandaging.

Below the knee bandage, I used another sheet of Fybagee with a standard stable bandage.

 

[Yuki1290]

Maybe it would be worth buying a pair of knee wraps to make it a bit easier... Also, as Northern Hare suggested, use a lot of padding - gamgee works well.

 

[dianchi]

I strongly recommend the pressure boots that you can get from your vet, this kept up with my madams knee, sounds like you were lucky when my yearling did hers she was in to horspital for a week and under went GA to resolve.

 

[magicmoose]

Thank you for the tips. He's grumpier about having the bandages on than the socking great injection each night!

We're not out of the woods yet. I haven't told Moose, but the vet is coming back on Monday to put a drain in.

 

[Tnavas]

I find the real Vetwrap is the best as it tends not to slip so easily

I like to use a disposable nappy as the shape and sticky tabs are great for getting the dressing in place before bandaging.

I prefer to use gamgee as it is mare maleable than fibregee, the piece has to be long enough to go from above the knee to below the fetlock, allowing extra over the front of the knee. Wrap a couple of times around above the knee and then a figure eight bandage with the cross over at the side. Eg twice around the top, down the side and twice around below the knee then back above and so on, finish above the knee.

Ensure that you have sufficient tension on the bandage to keep it from slipping but not so tight as to restrict blood flow. Avoid any pressure on the pisiform bone at the back of the knee.

Once you've bandaged the knee then bandage below the knee to below the fetlock. The lower bandage will help to keep the bandage up.

If it continues to slip you can apply a strip of sticky plaster bandage