Puzzling intermittent lameness

[a kind of magic]

I have been very lucky in 16 years of ownership and working with horses that I've not had much experience with lameness and only one experience of an abscess which came from a nail hole in the sole, so I would class myself very much a 'novice' when it comes to things like this!

A little while back our foal went very badly lame, was fine in the morning but in the afternoon he was 3 legged, lame on offside fore. Phoned the vet, vet identified abscess and dug it out a little, we then poulticed for 6 days, farrier was due on the 6th day so vet said to get him to have a look.

Said abscess actually ran all the way around his white line, not where the vet had initially identified. Continued to poultice and he came sound. He was sound for about 4 weeks when the odd intermittent lameness started. There was some heat in his offside fore hoof around the coronary band, it also looked swollen. Vet was due that day for jabs for another horse so I asked her to have a look. Advised poulticing again to draw out any infection, said it was connected to the original abscess.

We poulticed, after a few days the abscess seemed to burst out of his heel bulb, the swelling went down on his coronary band and although still lame, he was much better. Continued with a dressing until he was sound and a couple of days after all evidence of gunk was removed.

Since then (just before Christmas) he was been intermittently lame on that leg, with varying degrees of warmth in the coronary band. A different vet just advised to monitor him, every time he comes sound it's for a couple of days and then he goes lame again. Our farrier is coming later today (phoned on Monday but was the earliest he could come and have a look) but yesterday he was also lame on the offside hind with heat evident in the coronary band too. I am hoping the farrier can shed some light on it (his wife is an equine vet at another surgery, we are planning to move to her to have our farrier and vet able to work together) but I wondered if anyone else had any similar experiences?

He has his feet picked out daily, regular trims every 8 weeks, and generally has nice tidy, strong feet with good hoof conformation. He is 8 months old, fed only on grass and hay with a mineral lick in the field.

 

[be positive]

I would think there is probably still some infection in the foot, they can be very hard to drain completely either its one good session of poulticing or it can go on for months, a pony of mine had similar last winter it took over 4 months to clear despite every attention being paid to the treatment. Your farrier will, hopefully find something today and it may be the final hurdle, part of your problem is that like my pony he has very hard feet and the infection has both travelled down to the sole and up to the coronet, there is possibly still something going on in the middle.
It is possible that the infection is in the pedal bone so it may be advisable to consider x rays, mine was not affecting the bone but sited just above hence so hard to get to.

 

[a kind of magic]

Just a quick update. He had a horrendous white line infection and it is basically ongoing from the original abscess, so you were right. Hot tubbing and poultice and the farrier is due out again next week to check up on him, hind foot was another abscess but a straight forward one.

Trying to clear the infection this way, farrier did say if this doesn't work it will have to be holes at the top and physically flushing it out, once he is sound he is going for an x-ray as the farrier is worried the infection was so bad that it has caused some mis-alignment. Little chap was very well behaved whilst being poked about and is already much more comfortable. Fingers crossed we can get it sorted this time!