Blood letting for lami?

Has the vet looked for an abscess or just assumed it was laminitis initially, giving antibiotics will, if it is in the foot, suppress the abscess and may extend the recovery time, I feel for you with no access to a good vet is the farrier likely to be more on the ball when he comes out?

Good that the pony is feeling better.
 
I'm glad he's feeling better too and hope the steroids don't cause a problem.
By the sound of it I would carry on treating/managing as if he has laminitis. Once he is stable then you can start the detective mission. Diet, diet and diet is the major intervention for laminitis ime and opinion.
 
be positive: the vet did not try hoof testers, he assumed lami. I tried banging around with the hoof pick and he seemed reactive in both fronts. (it's a HW cob!! :D ) The farrier is at his first 1* so he'll be here as soon as he's back. I think the farrier may be better placed to rule out an abscess at the moment.

amandap: thank you, he is still in the pen with just hay and will stay there for the foreseable future!
 
I don't know if you can find a farrier that can fit these for you:
http://www.imprintshoes.co.uk/

My mare went down with lami in one foot, I was all ready to pts she was so sore, within minutes of having an imprint shoe on she was virtually sound!

Good luck, hope you can get him comfortable and sorted ASAP
 
I'm not sure I can believe what I'm reading. Vet gave steroids to a potential laminitic? I'm so glad you said you're not in the UK as would hate to think there was a vet in this country who would do that. Steroids are the biggest thing to avoid if you've even got a horse who might be prone to laminitis.
 
Personally I would firmly bandage disposable nappies to both his front feet as they will provide support and will help draw out any pus It should at least make him a bit more comfortable. It needs to be pampers type not the old fashioned pad ones. Damage may be done with the steroids but hopefully you can help make him more comfortable until you work out what is wrong. I am assuming it is dry enough for you to do so
 
We are still not sure what it is. Here is what happened:

- He lives out 24/7, the paddocks are particularly bare due to really heavy rein all winter/spring and the grass doesn't really grow as much as it does in the UK here. He is a 16hh HW cob who is retired, he is portly but is in fact the thinest he has ever been. He has ad lib low energy hay, a handful of Alpha and Farriers Formula. Monday he came in for the others to be ridden, he was fine.

- Tuesday he was checked in the paddock he seemed fine.

- Wednesday he came in and it was immediately apparent he was sore on both fronts, but able to walk. I couldn't find pulses, I tapped both hooves with the hoof pick and he was reactive. The vet came and said it was lami, he was taken off the grass, put in a tiny enclosure with soaked hay and given bute.

- next day he was worse, non-weight bearing on right front, respiration rate high and clearly in pain.

- By Friday still no better, on three legs, right front filling up now. Friday evening I gave him ACP.

- Saturday morning no better. Vet took bloods (impaired liver function, signs of infection, anemia - waiting for Cushing result today), gave him steroid anti-inflammatories and antibiotics, stopped bute, continued with ACP.

- Saturday evening better, weight bearing.

- today much better, can turn around in his little enclosure

Would the steroids not have made things worse by now if it was lami?
Farrier is coming asap to look for abscess.
 
On what planet is your vet?!!!! Steroids for a suspected lami case?! Jesus wept. Have xrays been done? If not why not? At least this would rule out a broken pedal bone and then would give you a look at any possible degree of rotation if it is lami. Xrays should be one of the first on the list of things to have been done on the first visit. And if they weren't able to xray, refer you to a vet who can.
Blood letting?!!
For the love of god change your vet.
 
Booboos said:
Would the steroids not have made things worse by now if it was lami?
Farrier is coming asap to look for abscess.
Click to expand...
I don't believe giving steroids will worsen laminitis in 100% cases so I wouldn't use that as an indicator.
How are his hind hooves? If there are pulses and there is soreness in both fronts I personally would be wary of having them dug about looking for abscessing.

ps. Toast if S France is anything like Ireland you do/may not have access to high tech facilities and modern thinking vets. Here you are pretty much on your own with things like laminitis except for diagnosis and pain relief.
 
Last edited:
JillA said:
One really bad case we had here had gas pockets inside the laminae thanks to inflammation etc, the equine vets drilled holes in the hoof wall to release the gas, working carefully from x rays.
Click to expand...
Arghhhh! Not this again! I can't believe vets think these so called gas pockets are going to cause hooves to explode if they don't release the 'gas'! The pocket is caused by sudden/rapid 'rotation' NOT a build up of gas.
 
Last edited:
The vet does not have an x-ray machine, the nearest is a 2 hour drive away. Until the weekend the horse was not up to even walking on the horsebox ramp much less the drive so we have to make do with what is available. In an ideal world I would love a great vet but as I said before the more experienced horse vets will not come out if its not their day to be in my area despite only being half an hour's drive away. That's rural France for you.

The farrier was delayed with another emergency, he'll be here tomorrow morning to look for an abscess. I haven't been able to find pulses on any of the four hooves, but perhaps I am missing them? I don't know.
 
So the farrier came today and Cakey seems fine...that's horses for you isn't it?! He was sound (in walk,we didn't want to press him too hard), no reaction to the hoof testers, the farrier couldn't find an elevated pulse either. We're leaving him as is, in the small paddock on hay, until the drugs wear off and then we'll see where we are, but at the moment it does not look like lami which is good news!
 
any experiences with dorsal resection of the front hooves on laminitus cases?It looks very like this will be the next step with my mare,she is footy to say the least,despite heart bars and gel padding on her fronts.The xrays show definite large shadows of "something" just in front of the pedal bonres..that fortunately have not rotated much at all,the vet is adament it is the proper way to go,and reading up about it I agree.At least the pressure and pain will be relieved,so,anyone had experience of aftercare and length of time to recovery?Could she go onto a bare paddock in hoof boots afterwards?Seems a shame for her to be missing the whole summer if it is avoidable.
 
re. the cryotherapy - I was under the impression that the only successful studies that have been done are more concerned with lamnitis prevention, and showed that cryotherapy was effective in reducing laminate and therefore might be useful in high risk situations (like toxic horses.) So far I haven't seen any compelling evidence as a treatment option, and have always been under the impression that you don't want too much vasoconstriction once a pony has laminitis as the laminae still need blood to be able to heal etc.
 
Just a little update in case anyone is interested: Cakey had an almost miraculous recovery from the lami. I kept him in the pen on sedatives for a couple of weeks but as soon as I stopped them he broke through the fencing and went after the grass. Luckily he was OK and has been fine since. Three months later the farrier's apprentice has butchered his hooves and he is in a lot of pain again. I managed to get hold of a more experienced vet from further away. She's looked at his bloods from the first attack and she thinks it was a snake bite! Apparently something in his bloods makes this obvious, the foot he was holding in the air was probably the one bitten, the sore hooves all around were because of the shock and the whole thing improved with steroids which is all consistent with snake bite! Of course some mystery must remain because we are not sure what is happening with him now. He is responding to aspirin pain killers (bute did nothing for him) but he is still in pain, very pale gums/tongue/eyelids and not quite well enough given the pain killers. We're waiting for his new blood exams to come through and they might shed some light on what is happening to the poor man.
 
Snake bites are bound to cause toxic response. Such a shame the apprentice butchered the hoof Booboos, time will now be a big factor to grow a new hoof. :( Was it the infamous dorsal wall resection? If in doubt...cut it out! So sad.
 
God knows what he thought he was doing! I have never seen hooves so short, even the vet said that was impressively short. The farrier has overdone it in the past by trimming too much (oddly enough he doesn't do it to the shod horses, just the unshod ones), but nothing like this. I have been more on top of the situation in the past, but this last visit my groom was ill and I was juggling the toddler and the farrier so I didn't see it happen. I'd take a photo and post it by frankly I feel too embarrassed!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top