frannieuk
Well-Known Member
Pic at the bottom!
Thought some of you might be interested to see this foot abscess on my poor mare, Floppy (some of you may remember her!).
She came in hopping lame about a month ago, and other than the lameness, the only symptom was swelling in the suspensory region. Although I suspected an abscess, I wasn't sure given the tendons so it was a vet call.
Vet couldn't find anything with the testers so removed the shoe and I poulticed for a couple of days.
When he came back, the horse literally couldn't put her foot down but there was still no reaction to the testers other than a little air escaping by the tip of the frog. When he cut in it was vile! Black pus and blood everywhere, and we were happy he'd found it and thought that it would follow the normal course.
Continued poulticing and farrier came out 5 days later and cut out a little more (top left pic). I then packed it with iodoform ether from the vet. The following week (top right and bottom left pic) it was still smelling and so it was time to take more drastic action.
The vet and the farrier turned up together, worked out a plan of action and started cutting out the dead and diseased sole to get back to healthy foot. As you can see from the bottom right picture this was indeed drastic!! Turned out that the abscess had underrun most of the sole, which was loose and also a large part of the frog.
It's currently packed with a mix of sugar and iodene and held together under a hospital plate, which will remain on for quite some time I guess, and which I will need to repack every couple of days.
Amazingly, the mare is sound and a damn sight happier than she was before, and it's just a long slow (c6-9months!) recovery while the foot grows back.
Please do share your stories if you've had anything similar!
Thought some of you might be interested to see this foot abscess on my poor mare, Floppy (some of you may remember her!).
She came in hopping lame about a month ago, and other than the lameness, the only symptom was swelling in the suspensory region. Although I suspected an abscess, I wasn't sure given the tendons so it was a vet call.
Vet couldn't find anything with the testers so removed the shoe and I poulticed for a couple of days.
When he came back, the horse literally couldn't put her foot down but there was still no reaction to the testers other than a little air escaping by the tip of the frog. When he cut in it was vile! Black pus and blood everywhere, and we were happy he'd found it and thought that it would follow the normal course.
Continued poulticing and farrier came out 5 days later and cut out a little more (top left pic). I then packed it with iodoform ether from the vet. The following week (top right and bottom left pic) it was still smelling and so it was time to take more drastic action.
The vet and the farrier turned up together, worked out a plan of action and started cutting out the dead and diseased sole to get back to healthy foot. As you can see from the bottom right picture this was indeed drastic!! Turned out that the abscess had underrun most of the sole, which was loose and also a large part of the frog.
It's currently packed with a mix of sugar and iodene and held together under a hospital plate, which will remain on for quite some time I guess, and which I will need to repack every couple of days.
Amazingly, the mare is sound and a damn sight happier than she was before, and it's just a long slow (c6-9months!) recovery while the foot grows back.
Please do share your stories if you've had anything similar!
