Cellulitis - help!

[angelkm84]

Hello, i’ll keep this as short as possible.

I have a 7 year old thoroughbred mare who is being treated with cellulitis and would love to hear your advice, thoughts or experience.

5 weeks ago she had an accident in the trailer which caused a small superficial cut to her hind leg. I kept it clean with hibiscrub and silver cream/spray. About 4 days after the incident her leg started to swell slightly, although it was warmer weather and she was still sound so wasn’t too worried. 6 days after the accident she developed a slight lameness and by day 7 she was hopping lame and the leg was severely swollen. The vet came out, diagnosed cellulitis, and gave her an IV antibiotic which she then took a reaction to. She developed a lump at the site of the injection instantly and over the next few hours was sweating profusely down the right hand side of her face and neck, the side where the injection was given. The next 48 hours were touch and go. She was kept quiet and was given Trimediazine antibiotics and danilon twice a day. Over the next week she was up and walking, albeit very lame and not herself.

Fast forward a month later, i have just finished her course of antibiotics and danilon and she is still lame. The swelling has reduced, although her leg is still nearly twice as big as it should be. The wound itself is bandaged every 2 days to keep it clean and keep the flies off it. It is healing fine and is no bigger than a 5p piece.

The vet had said to rest her and keep her off work for another month or two, and it might be a good idea just to turn her away until Spring next year. He “hopes” she may return to a full ridden career but there’s no guarantees. I cannot sustain high vet bills and above all, she is absolutely miserable just being in the field, i’ve never seen her so depressed and lifeless.

Should i have seen more of an improvement by now?
Is there any treatment i am missing?
Has anyone had a horse with cellulitis to this extent and returned to a career in eventing?

Any advice would be great fully appreciated.

 

[teach]

I’ve had amazing success with silver whinnies! They’re socks a little like tubigrip..

 

[angelkm84]

I’ve had amazing success with silver whinnies! They’re socks a little like tubigrip..

Thank you, i will look into these!

Did you still have good results 5 weeks after the onset? Everything i seem to read points to positive improvements within the first week, if not it seems to be a bit of a losing battle.

 

[Skips11]

Really sorry to hear - I'm currently going through this with mine (4 weeks on). Some really good tips on my thread: https://forums.horseandhound.co.uk/threads/cellulitis.807875/

Movement is key, even if really lame a hack with lots of trotting really helps mine and also getting in the sea if you can. The sea and work is/was the best thing we did for mine.

All I would say is push your vet for more if you aren't seeing improvements. A steroid jab was a big step forward for mine. They can be reluctant to do it because of lami risks but the benefits will probably outweigh the negatives for a TB. We are on the second lot of antibiotics and steroids (equipred) now (we initially did trimediazine and danilon too) and she is at a rehab yard who are giving her hydrotherapy twice a day and also taking her up the gallops twice a day. This looks and feels awful as she starts off hopping on 3 legs but it really is the best thing for it to get the circulation going. Being an ex racer she actually pricks her ears and wants to go when she sees the gallops so it's actually quite handy!

We've also tried an ice vibe boot. Speak to your vet though because they are expensive if they aren't going to do much!

I also enquired about laser therapy but my mare is too far along for that now as I was told it needs to be used at the start, so that might be worth a try.

Out of everything though, the sea was the game changer for mine as recommended by someone else on here.

Really hope you get on top of it, but if it's possible, I can highly recommend going to a good rehab yard that deal with it regularly because it's a really hard condition to deal with on your own.

 

[Skips11]

Oh and the next step for mine if we don't make much more progress at the rehab yard will be IV antibiotics and possibly a diuretic has been mentioned too, so worth speaking to your vet about those!

 

[angelkm84]

Really sorry to hear - I'm currently going through this with mine (4 weeks on). Some really good tips on my thread: https://forums.horseandhound.co.uk/threads/cellulitis.807875/

Movement is key, even if really lame a hack with lots of trotting really helps mine and also getting in the sea if you can. The sea and work is/was the best thing we did for mine.

All I would say is push your vet for more if you aren't seeing improvements. A steroid jab was a big step forward for mine. They can be reluctant to do it because of lami risks but the benefits will probably outweigh the negatives for a TB. We are on the second lot of antibiotics and steroids (equipred) now (we initially did trimediazine and danilon too) and she is at a rehab yard who are giving her hydrotherapy twice a day and also taking her up the gallops twice a day. This looks and feels awful as she starts off hopping on 3 legs but it really is the best thing for it to get the circulation going. Being an ex racer she actually pricks her ears and wants to go when she sees the gallops so it's actually quite handy!

We've also tried an ice vibe boot. Speak to your vet though because they are expensive if they aren't going to do much!

I also enquired about laser therapy but my mare is too far along for that now as I was told it needs to be used at the start, so that might be worth a try.

Out of everything though, the sea was the game changer for mine as recommended by someone else on here.

Really hope you get on top of it, but if it's possible, I can highly recommend going to a good rehab yard that deal with it regularly because it's a really hard condition to deal with on your own.

Thank you so much, and i’m so sorry you are having to go through this awful condition too.

We are about a 20min hack to the beach so it is possible to try that - although our vet has told us to do “nothing”. Just to leave her resting in her paddock and time will be the answer. It seems conflicting compared to the advice others have been given?

 

[Skips11]

Thank you so much, and i’m so sorry you are having to go through this awful condition too.

We are about a 20min hack to the beach so it is possible to try that - although our vet has told us to do “nothing”. Just to leave her resting in her paddock and time will be the answer. It seems conflicting compared to the advice others have been given?

To be honest yours sounds like a very similar case to mine. I've had 2 different vets see her - one had us walking her for 20m in hand every 2 hours (even throughout the night at the start), and if we hadn't have done this we would have lost her. We had lots of improvement so we hacked her, which made the leg almost normal size and she was pretty much sound. About a week of thinking we were over it and the leg suddenly filled again which is where we are now. The second vet wanted us to continue to work her - lunge/ride/anything and as fast as possible to really get everything moving. He told me to go on at least an hour hack every day! Everyone I have spoken to (4 vets in total on the phone!) has said the same thing, so I would maybe ask for a second opinion?

Only reason I can think of is maybe if the infection is still bubbling then more movement might also spread the infection?

In terms of the beach, we did this in hand and just waded slowly around, but even just standing in the sea (right up to stifle level) really really helped. I also noticed a decrease in the size of the leg just from travelling her in the box because she had to use it to stand up.
Might be worth a try!

 

[teach]

Thank you, i will look into these!

Did you still have good results 5 weeks after the onset? Everything i seem to read points to positive improvements within the first week, if not it seems to be a bit of a losing battle.

It cleared it up, lots of help in the Facebook too!