swelling above knee?

[scrat]

Our clydesdale mare came in today pretty lame on her off fore. The farrier was due today so he trimmed her feet (she is never shod) and could not see any obvious foot problems. Then we noticed a swelling just above her knee, on the outside of her leg. It is quite firm, about the size of a small egg. I suspect it is soft tissue or fluid? We have applied leg ice and she has her magnetic boots on. She was very stiff on this leg after a few hours in her stable (she has arthritis anyway) so we have turned her out as usual as I think box rest would cripple her! She is very bright and eating as usual. Does anyone know what the swelling might be? There are no other signs of injury and I think she must have jarred the leg or slipped, the ground is very hard in the field.

 

[ExRacers]

I have a 22yr old 17hh TB who came in from the field a couple of weeks ago with a very similar swelling above his near fore knee slightly to the outside - same size and squashy to touch if you know what I mean?! Wasn't lame on it & didn't mind it being touched - so only conclusion we came to was that not a day goes by that he doesn't have a roll, and 650kg of horse hitting VERY hard ground probably did it. It's still there now but maybe slightly smaller - I'm just ignoring it unless anything else happens to make me think otherwise!!

 

[scrat]

Thanks for that. I thought she may have done this while getting up or down to roll. She probably weighs more like 850kg so that is a lot of weight to hit the ground awkwardly!! We'll see how she is today but I expect it will take a while for her to recover simply because she is a heavy horse and a bit arthritic anyway.

 

[picklesforme]

Sounds like my boys lumps, he had them on both knees. He'd be lame one day and not the next. After alot of investigations it was discovered he had bone spurs growing and they caused carpal tunnel syndrome. He had an operation where they discovered he had artheritis.

He's a big boy as well.
Not sure if that was any help hope so