Correct first aid for a cut??

[Fiona]

Brought my accident prone TB mare in tonight, and she has a fairly straight, clean (as opposed to jagged) cut in a downward direction on the front of her near hind cannon bone about 1/2 way between her hock and her fetlock. I cleaned it up with lots of cotton wool and warm water, but thought it may be just deep enough to have a stitch so phoned the vets and had a call out. The vet thought that it would be better not to stitch, as it might swell and burst the stitch(es), but gave her some penicilin and suggested we bandage to keep it clean and minimize swelling, and call into the surgery tomorrow for a course of antibiotic powders.
I have bandaged it up with an animalintex (slightly dampened over the cut area), covered by an exercise bandage. I will remove this tomorrow morning, probably put on a little dermobion, re-bandage and put her out in the field as normal as she doesn't like to be kept in and is normally out all day.

If I keep it clean by bandaging like this, and give her the antibiotic powders, is there anything else I should do, or is there any other way I should bandage it??


Thanks for any advice.

Fiona

 

[Happy Horse]

Unless it is really manky I wouldn't use Animalintex, I'd just stick to some clean melolin over the wound. Animalintex is actually fairly harsh on clean, healthy wounds.

 

[taceann]

Not animalintex, can cause proud flesh, esp on legs which are anyway more prone than other parts of body.

Keep clean and moist, wound gel or similar stuff then put the melonin or similar and vetrap etc over to keep the dressing in place and keep dirt out - the slight pressure of the bandage will also help deter granulation.

 

[brightmount]

My horse recently had a fairly innocuous looking cut in pretty much the same place. The leg swelled and she was lame for a couple of days, but I didn't expect the cut itself to pose any problems. She started a course of Norodine the day after the injury, and I was using Dermobion initially, but we ended up with a horrendous deep infection. I had to draw it out with hot poultices of animalintex in the end, and as mentioned by pacer, I ended up with really bad proud flesh, which was the topic of another thread I posted on here.

I would agree with keeping it covered, which is where I think I went wrong at the beginning.

Here's a tip for keeping the bandage in place in the field. The position of your injury may mean there is room below the bandage for a Sports Medicine boot or similar. This will stop the bandage slipping down the leg. I also found vetwrap loses its adhesion after about the third time you use it. Cut it back by about 6 inches each time you reapply it as the outer layer doesn't re-stick again too well, especially if it's got muddy.

 

[Fiona]

No - it's not manky at all. It seemed very clean when I had washed it initially. I didn't know that about animalintex, the vet said to use it, though he isn't the horse vet in the practice, it was after hours so he was the one on call.
Is melonin a dressing type pad, I think I bought a couple a while back when I saw them in a tack shop. I can definitely use one of those tomorrow, covered with some vetwrap, does there need to be any padding in between though.
If I need to buy more dressings, I suppose I can prob get in the chemist as well, or similar??

Fiona

 

[Fiona]

What is norodine?? is it an antibiotic. She has had a jab of penicillin (poor baby as she does hate being injected, and the vet wasn't as quick to do it as her normal one which made it worse) and I will collect antib powders for her tomorrow morning.
Am just glad she did it today rather than over Xmas.
She had a roll, followed by a buck/rear etc this morning when I turned her out, so could well have happened then. I thought she had grown out of kicking herself, she has been cut free for about 7 months now.

FIona

 

[brightmount]

Yes you definitely need to use gamgee over melolin and under the vetwrap. It's important for circulation on a leg. My vet said at least 3 thicknesses - the easiest thing is to fold it over and wrap round twice (i.e. 4 thicknesses). Get that white gamgee on a roll. You can use it twice maybe if the horse doesn't get too filthy, then throw it away. You need to bandage tightly enough to keep the bandage up, but not too tightly, hence the boot suggestion, because this will prevent the bandage slipping down. Leave about half an inch of gamgee showing top and bottom when you put on the vetwrap.

 

[brightmount]

Yes norodine is a broad-spectrum antibiotic, and I have to say it was totally useless in stopping the infection taking hold in my case, unless her leg would have dropped off if I hadn't been using it.

Fortunately she had recently had her tetanus booster.

 

[taceann]

Yes, keep clean, apply wound gel, then melonin, layer of gamgee or layer of cotton wool padding, then vetwrap on top and poss boot on top if you need to keep bandage up.

 

[Fiona]

It's looking very good today (runs away to touch wood though), with no heat or fill in the rest of her leg which she has had with other cuts.

I have kept it bandaged since it happened, only taking it off to ride, and was v careful to hose it clean and dry it before bandaging it up again.

Collected a five day course of equitrim powders today for her, as the last thing I want to happen is for an infection to kick off over the Xmas holiday period.

Fiona

 

[brightmount]

If there's no heat, swelling or lameness and you're keeping it clean and covered, then I would say you have got away with it, and the vet can enjoy his Christmas lunch without expecting a phone call