Thrush and lameness... plus insurance question

[Marnie]

Muppet is on box rest with walking at the moment due to a fractured pedal bone and damaged collateral ligament. She has had IRAP and shockwave and I took her to the vets for a reassesment last week. She was more or less sound on her 'bad' leg on the straight and a circle, but was lame on her other fore leg. She was intermittently lame on this leg when she was diagnosed with the collateral ligament damage (fracture been present for over a year) in the 'bad' leg.

I thought I had found an abcess down the side of her frog last night so poulticed it, but nothing came out. She does appear to have thrush quite badly so I have cleaned and purple sprayed all around her frog. My question is would thrush make her 4/10 lame if she is not at all bothered by me poking, prodding and cleaning her foot? If it was the thrush causing the problem I would have thought that she would object more to me messing around but she doesn't even flinch.

The vet is going to ask the referral vet to review her MRI of that leg and then I will take her back to my vet for reassessment. I am out of insurance for her 'bad' leg, is this lameness in her other leg likely to be covered? I am assuming that it would be dated back to when she was intermittently lame previously, and will be phoning tomorrow. They will never insure me again, I have had full payment for her current lameness, payment for sinus infection and a payout for my stolen trailed, good old NFU!

Thanks for any help, sorry, this got a bit long

 

[Nailed]

If she is letting you poke and prod her frog, then its not to the stage of canker, and therefore unlikly to make her 2/10's lame never mind 4/10ths...

Nfu are very reasonable, as you know from your other experience. Ring them and ask.

Lou x

 

[Gleeful Imp]

Similar thing happened to my friend's horse - and it was the thrush that was causing the lameness even though he didn't mind it being messed with (so to speak).

I think your insurance will depend on when the date of the 1st exam is for the other leg and whether NFU were notified of it as a problem, but thinking back to when Tom had his knee problem diagnosed (following a hock injury it brought the knee problem out if you see what I mean) although it was noted at the time of the hock exam, it was a seperate claim from the date of the vet visit specifically for his knee.

Hope that made sense and good luck x

 

[ladyt25]

Hmm, it will depend if the problem in the other foot has been caused as a direct result of the previous problem - ie caused because the horse is putting more weight on the 'good' leg.

If this is the case then ot would be considered as part of the original claim and, if your fees for that have been used up, then it's not going to be covered. Is all going to depend on whether the vet states it to be directly connected to the original claim basically.