Success with mud fever thanks to good vet

curran

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4 March 2011
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Just to let you guys know there is light at the end of the tunnel with severe mud fever. My boy's back legs turned into balloons 2 and a half weeks ago - he couldn't walk. I got the vet out pdq. £303 later and he is almost free of it with the last scabs drying up fast and looking wobbly. It was the first time I'd come across it so I didn't get it right at the beginning and he must have been cooking it up for a while before it suddenly went off the scale.
He had come back from being backed at another yard and he must have picked it up there. I just thought it was little bits of stubborn mud clinging to his heels and pasterns so I washed it with water and a splash of alcohol (first mistake) and rubbed hard to get it off (second mistake). The skin was pink and the hair a bit thin but I still thought it was mud. I put some sudocrem on (third mistake)and left him out as usual overnight and next day he was a mess.
What I'd done was stir it all up, damage the skin then seal the wetness in so the bugs had a field day.
After cleaning it up properly with quite hot water under sedation the vet put some dermosol on with cling film on and bandaged it up. He was also given shots of antibiotic and steroid. Next day I had to remove the bandages, clean it with hibiscrub, dab dry(ish) and apply flamazine with 2 other creams added to it and bandage again. This was not easy as he was still in a lot of pain. He also had oral antibiotic and danilon in his feed twice a day.
I had to carry on creaming and bandaging every day for a week. I was able to stop the cleaning after 3 days as it was starting to dry up and the vet preferred to keep it dry.
After a week I carried on with the cream but left off the bandages as things were looking much better. All the swelling had gone. When the cream was used up the vet told me to use a good mud fever cream and keep it creamed twice a day till all the scabs had fallen off - no rubbing or picking at scabs! I used mud bar and I'm still putting it on every day to be on the safe side but the scabs have shrunk to next to nothing and the skin and hair looks normal again thank goodness. Just thought this could be useful to someone as it can strike at any time of year
 
Thanks for this.

After years of fighting it, I finally got rid recently by washing the feathers then squirting on Avon Skin So Soft. Amazing stuff. :)
 
My big horse gets quite bad mud fever - he doesn't have much feather so it usually just results in cracked, infected heels. I've always struggled a bit to find something that really works, best has been Protocon but even that isn't perfect. Recently discovered Muddy Marvel... it is AMAZING! Thanks to the delightful summer we've had, his mud fever got quite bad a couple of weeks ago, suddenly. Put this stuff on and within 2 days the cracks had healed. Now the hair has grown back and all but one little patch has healed.

Can thoroughly recommend it! Now that your horse's MF has healed, I'd turn out with loads of MM slathered all over it :)
 
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