Hind leg - warm and slightly swollen

[Supanova]

Hello - sorry to bore you all as I have posted about this problem before but I'm sure you all know what its like to be a paranoid horse owner!! My horse has always had slight swellings just below the front of each hock which the vet who vetted her said was nothing to worry about and was just swelling of the extensor tendon sheath. I noticed 2 weeks ago that the one on lthe eft hind had got a bit bigger and was slightly warm. Vet was there for something else so got her to look at it and she says she was a 1/10th lame on left hind so to give her a few days rest and she would come back on the tuesday. 4 days later she was 100% sound so brought her back into full work for a week and she seemed fine - not lame and leg had gone down and was not hot. I gave her a really good ride on Monday and on Tues night (she had been in stable all day) the leg seemed warm and bit puffy again! I don't think she is lame but not sure I would see 1/10th lameness

! Have just called the vet for advice and she is going to come and look at her this pm so I guess I will have my answer then

but in the meantime does anyone think this is something I need to really worry about? Sorry for the rambling!!

 

[Baileyhoss]

I would be inclined to cold hose/ice boot 2 x daily until the swelling & heat were gone & give a full week or 10 days off (even if there is no lameness) for things like this. Arnica wouldn't hurt either.

When bringing back into work, do it gradually, taking up to 2-3 weeks to get back to where you were.

Although if there was a prolonged lameness, say of a week or more, or if it's recurrent, in spite of doing the above, call the vet for some proper diagnostics.

 

[Supanova]

Thanks Baileyhoss. Sounds like very sensible advice. My vet originally said no need to cold hose/ice etc but I thought that seemed odd as surely it would be good to take any swelling/heat down and wouldn't do any harm. Will go and buy some Arnica today.

After her initial 4 days off I actually thought that it went down with exercise over next few days and it certainly was cool and not any worse after I did two dressage tests, but then it has come back up again after I did a lot of work on Monday night on transitions and pole work so I guess I could have been making her use her hind legs more.