open wound and proud flesh

[sherwood']

Hey!

My YO asked me to ask on here for some help as I keep telling her how good it is for help!!

Her 4 yr old was out on a post breaking break and sliced her back leg on the cannon form almost the hock to the fetlock it was raw for a long time. she spent 4 weeks at an equine spa and came home and it was much better and had started to heal from the outside in. She has daily visits to the beach for the salt water which is helping and is now about 3 months since it happened.

It is now at the stage that the wound is about the size of half an egg and is protruding proud flesh out of the leg now about 3- 4 cm. She cant get near the leg at all to put any sort of cream on it without doping etc so that sort of treatment isnt very fesible.

She is totally sound and it is no longer swollen. Do u think it wud be ok to start working her again at home? The only worry we wud have is that it would open the wound up again? the vet suggested cutting the proud flesh off but she didn’t like the idea of that?

Any help wud be great. Ill try and get photos tonite for a better idea! thanks!

 

[Loupride]

I had a similar problem when P's leg started to heal; I got a great lotion called "White Lotion" I know very specific

from my vet and it worked wonders; however if you cant get near the leg this is probably no use???

I did however start to walk P very soon after he returned home but again this was with a bandage on? He has been on a walker for a few minutes at the spa & he getting too bolshy to hand walk so I had no option.

I've just realise this is probably no use to you at all but I hope you get her sorted soon;

 

[Tierra]

I'd personally get the proud flesh removed because it has a tendency to not go and does cause issues.

My mare degloved one of her hind legs from the hock to the coronet band.. all the way round the leg and deep enough for the bone to be viewable in several areas.

It took about 12 months before she was rideable and what shes left with is a square of flesh about 2 inches below the hock on the front of the hind leg. Id guess the square is then... about 2.5 inches in length.

We didnt go for the option of removing the proud flesh when it was forming because the poor horse had been through so much that i didnt want to put her through more.

The problem is, every summer it dries, attracts flies and gets sunburned. She'll knock the scab off it approximately once every two months which then leaves raw flesh underneath (which also bleeds). Again, more fly problems then. Ive tried everything to keep the skin more supple, but nothing works. The scab ontop of it grows continuously until she knocks it off... then the process starts again. So its basically a viscious circle.

Im not bothered about the unsightlyness of the injury (but it IS unsightly) purely because the injury ended her working career anyway, but if id known what an annoyance it would be to her, i would have had the proud flesh removed when it was forming.

Its not as awful as it sounds... the leg is anaethetised anyway but it does bleed quite heavily when they remove it... but for the sake of long term healing, id definitly get it done.

 

[MagicMelon]

Cut Heal is brilliant for keeping proud flesh at bay - my vet recommends it for everything that cant / doesnt need to be stitched. I used it on one of my horses who gashed herself in a big way, it healed beautifully with no proud flesh and no scarring even! Dont know if it would work now since proud flesh is there though.......

Id basically see what the vet advised with regard to the proud flesh and also with regard to work.

 

[BBs]

Echo cut and heal and Camrosa. Winstons leg healed fabulously after being treated with Camrosa.

 

[sherwood']

Right ok- i think she was of the same opinion that if she did get the proud flesh removed then she wud be back to sqaure one again re being off work and wud take a while to heal.

I think what u are saying is very useful tho as i have never had any experience of it. Would the skin never really come up over the flesh sticking out then?
thanks!

 

[sherwood']

thanks! it sounds like a similar sort of injury and while she isnt riding her she has been walking out in hand and the horse is dying to be worked.

Is he still in work then and has his wound healed yet? Would it rip the wound open agian and cause further problems if u started riding if not completely healed?

 

[sherwood']

thanks! Would the camrosa get rid of the protruding flesh?

 

[dieseldog]

I had the proud flesh on my arm burnt off with silver nitrate - it didn't slow the healing process down a lot

 

[Tierra]

I dont think having the flesh removed is a major thing at all and i dont think it would put her back to stage 1 (can understand why you'd be concerned about this).

What you'll be left with his new, healthy tissue that is level with the skin line. They'd likely then give you a cream to prevent or inhibit the same granulation tissue forming and theoretically, they leg should be able to heal up normally. (You may get a scar, but its going to be considerably less than a big chunk of bare skin).

I know with my mare, once the leg had all filled in and essentially healed, she had the area of granulation tissue covered when she was worked just to keep dirt out of it and that seemed to work well.

While ever you have a big chunk of granulation tissue stuck off the leg, you're very very unlikely to get the hair to grow back and cover it. As i mentioned, for me, that wasnt the issue but the constant reoccuring issues she has with it are.

What we're left with (i cant take pictures sadly), is a square of pink flesh that basically looks much like normal skin but is uneven and slightly raised from the rest of her leg. In the centre of that, where the worst of the granulation tissue occured, she has a big chunk scabby thing. This grows continuously and can reach sort of 2 inches in depth (which is stuck off the leg), before it gets knocked off. At that point she has raw flesh underneath which heals, and then the process starts over.

Covering it, using creams etc make not a blind bit of difference at this stage.

Speak with your vet, but for the sake of quite a tiny procedure, id honestly be getting it cut off.

p.s. I will see if i have any piccies laying around that show her leg.

 

[Tierra]

No exactly, the wound underneath is essentially healed and just needs the skin to close. What scaling the granulation off does is removes the excess and allows the skin to close. There is some initial bleeding, but its really nothing major but it should then allow the skin to close together (where as if the granulation stays, it cant)

 

[sherwood']

Thank u very much for ur help! Her leg is having that problem at the moment that a scab keeps forming but then is washed off in sea or hosing etc and then is raw again so by what you are saying that seems ot be the same thing.

Also we havent seen any difference in the wound gettign smaller in the past few weeks which is why we are concerend it isnt going to improve further.

She isnt a show horse but was aiming for eventing so as long as you cud get a boot on it, it doesnt matter re scaring but as is so raw and protruding at the moment you couldnt do this!

 

[Tierra]

Yea it sounds a lot like Bliss's. Her's has shrunk.. but im talking over a ten year period. The very edges of it have grown some hairs back... but they're very short spikey hairs that never grown as long as they should and because they are very few and the tissue underneath is uneven, it still doesnt cover up much of the scarring.

Hers builds up into a very peculiar scab also. It starts as you would expect a scab to look, but at its height (which as i said can be like 2 inches deep) its more like a solid accumulation of layers and layers of flakey skin.

We always use sun cream on it in the summer, but even then ive known it to burn and peal around the edges. While i dont think the wound hurts her at all anymore, the issues she has are undoubtedly an annoyance to her :|

Funny you should mention boots also as i have this issue with bliss. When she was first allowed to go out again, the vet wanted the leg covered and THEN booted to give plenty of support. I couldnt even get any hind boots around it to begin with but they wanted me to put vet wrap and padding over the wound and THEN boot it up.

I did find that large woof wear brushing boots would go around BUT if you put a boot over now, it rubs off the scab. If the scab isnt there, it irritates the skin thats left. Its just a complete and total nightmare. Its also quite scarey when you compare how tight the boots will close on her "good leg" with her bad hind leg.

If you had the tissue removed, you be left with a patch of raw looking, but healthy tissue that SHOULD then close normally. Whats your vets opinion?

 

[fairhill]

Tierra - have you tried using aloe vera gel on Bliss' scar? I used it on a scar from a broken knee and the scabby layers broke down, leaving it much flatter. We got some hair growth as well, and the skin that was left was much healthier and more elastic.

 

[Tierra]

Yea we did but she seemed to have some localised irritation by it. However that was at a time when one of the grooms on the yard seemed quite intent on cleaning it all the time and I think the general intrusion was annoying the skin (soooo it may not have been the aloe vera directly if you see what i mean)

The best thing we found in terms of keep it from drying out was vaseline, but we then have to apply that only around the edge of the scarring otherwise it makes the scabby bit go very funny and gooey

It does look quite unsightly but to be fair, shes 18 years old now and more or less sound on the leg (when we initially thought she would have to be PTS)

Shes out on loan in the UK atm but Im hoping to get her brough over here perhaps at the end of this year. If so, i'll certainly keep that in mind and give it a go.

 

[Law]

We had a horse on our yard who'd put her leg through sheep fencing (at a different yard) and she had masses of proud flesh and the vet treated it with something called 'oily oily' I know that is not the most useful of descriptions! I'll see if I can find its technical name. Some kind of chemical thing/salt/crystal/sodium something or other. It worked a treat anyway. Blue something I think.

I'll have a look.

 

[Scarlett]

I had the proud flesh from my lads wound cut off - after that it started to heal really, really quickly! Used aloe vera cream along with Fuciderm the vet gave me... Initial prognosis of his injury was 6-9 months rest and 12 month off work - he pulled a gate down with his foreleg and ripped half of it off down to bone and tendon - however he was back being ridden 10 weeks after it happened and only has a bit of a bump and a small scar...

I'd ask for it to be cut off....

 

[sherwood']

Great thanks!

 

[Bounty]

My little mare was kicked in the field about 12 months ago, causing an incision and flap of flesh. We were away and it wasn't treated until we got back which was about 24hours after the inident, so too late to stitch. She was pretty wild and would barely allow us to pack it with intrasite. We ended up using a wound lotion that was given to us by our vet which should have prevented proud flesh forming. We put it on using a plant sprayer as that was the only way to get close enough.
As you can see from the first pic, it didn't work!! We then decided to let it grow while we handled her, so that after the flesh was removed we'd be able to treat her properly.
The second and third pics were taken just after the flesh had been removed (has intrasite on it, so not as gruesome as it first appears!!).
The fourth pic is about a week after starting to treat her with manuka honey and pressure bandaging. As you can see it was working wonders.
No recent pics, but the scarring is minimal and her movement isn't affected.

Close your eyes now if you're squeamish!!!

 

[kibob]

Hi, one of my mares had a similar injury - severed a hind leg all the way down the cannon bone exposing bone and severing the extensor tendon. Treating it was a nightmare, she wouldn't let you even look at it without being sedated. The healing went well up to a point and then proud flesh started to appear. The vets sliced it off, we packed it using fuiciderm and bandaged it, a couple of days later we took the bandage off and all looked well the granulation tissue had covered the whole wound, then she would so much as move her leg and it would open up again and she would be dripping blood. This went on for a number of sessions, cutting off the proud flesh was horrible, she bled like you wouldn't believe. There are apparently no nerve ending in pf but loads of blood vessels. We just weren't getting anywhere as this one area (prob about egg sized) refused to heal completely.

After about 4 months my vet was talking about cutting away the healed tissue to form a crator and basically to start from scratch again. This would have meant probably another 2 months box rest, my mare was thoroughly depressed and I don't think this was helping the healing process. I decided to turn her out as I figured if we were going to have to go back to square one I had nothing to loose. Luckily, she was fine and although she tore around like a loony she didn't open the wound up again. I then just left the proud flesh to form cos I couldn't put the poor mare through anymore.

I tried Manuka honey and it was the best thing I used, but I couldn't really get near the leg well enough to apply it regularly. I am now left with a large lump that protudes probably a couple of inches and has a large scabby area about the size of an egg. she is however, sound and always has been. Is now in work and starting to jump with no problems.

I would recommend your friend turns her horse away for the rest of the summer as any damage done now could set her right back again.

I would like to know if it is now too late to treat the proud flesh, don't really want to go down the route of having it cut off again - as ime this can go on for months and months, but wondered if laser treatment is beneficial - if anyones got any ideas I would be really grateful.

Also if any of you have a horse with a slightly thickened right hind do they want to share exercise boots cos my mares hind legs are two different sizes lol.

 

[fairhill]

Kibob - my mare had laser treatment on her knee, but to be honest we didn't notice a difference in the scarring. It was aloe vera which made the biggest difference to her, so might be worth getting some to try. At the very least it's unlikely to cause any harm, and if you've got a plant then it's free!

 

[kibob]

Ok, thanks for that - think I'll save my pennies on the laser treatment and try aloe vera instead

 

[Law]

I've since heard that the stuff I was on about really is called 'oily oily' and it was developed here in Wales. I'll see if I can find out any more for you

 

[sherwood']

thanks everyone for all your help- it helped us make our mind up so vet is coming out on thursday to sedate and cut the proud flesh off.

Would creams be of benefit once this has been done?

 

[Tierra]

The vet will probably give you something to inhibit the growth of granulation tissue.. so see what they say about looking after it once its been cut off.

Im sure you've made the right choice btw... but do be aware it can be quite bloody so if you're squeamish...

 

[Romansmum]

i have posted in the past about my mares huge wound


this is it originally it is the size of a large palm of an adult

After 8 weeks of pressure bandgages and intracite gel and HUGE vet bill

My lady was bored and in a lot of pain from bandage rubs, she had also started developing proud flesh.....

Finally let my l;ady go out started treating with Schriners and cut heal - Schriners formula is in a spray so you should be able to treat it hrom a safe distance (Both products were suggested off this board)


Fuzzy but from one week ago hopeflly you can tell it is alot smaller

it is healing really well now all proud flesh has receded and it is now about the size of a 50p we are going to a show tomorrow!!! (Hurray) the vet has seen her aftter we tgook her bandage off and warned me against what i was doing but ow has had to eat his worrds!!

he he