To take to the vet or not to take to the vet?

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treacle_beastie

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Ok so I have a bit of a dilemma and cant decide what to do for the best. I have asked everyone I know and I am getting a 50/50 response and probably expect the same on here but wonder what everyone else thinks.

So - my horse came in lame from the filed at the beginning of sept following a windy night. There was heat and swelling in her near fore fetlock and a windgall appeared. I cold hosed and bandaged and left in her overnight. The next day the windgall had gone down. Over the next week the heat/swelling went down and the lameness on the hard improved. After a week and a half I could not notice that she was lame so decided to start riding her out. I took her out for a weeks worth of short hacks and schooled her the following week on a surface. She seemed fine. I lunged the next day and thought she still looked a bit lame and then schooled her the next night and she felt Ok but was a bit resistant. I then took her for a longer (maybe a bit too long a hack) at the weekend and went for a short canter.
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2 days later (3rd week since coming in lame) she was lame both on a suface and on the hard.

She has since had 2 more weeks rest. In the 4th week I had her back checked and she was still lame on the surface but OK on the hard. 2 days later she was the same. Today which is now nearly 6 weeks since the start of it all and she is about 1/10th lame on one rein on a surface so has improved since the 3/10th lame last week.

There is no heat/swelling/windgall anymore But I still cold hose and bandage every night. She is in at night but turned out in the day. The vet said to continue to do this as she will stomp around more on box rest.

Soooo - she is booked in for a lameness workup on wed which I cant afford ( I will have to put a claim in) but I am debating whether to just give her another 2 weeks off - continue to assess and if it gets worse take her to the vet and if gets better then bring her back into work slowly?

Should I take her now as its been 6 weeks but slowly getting better or leave it a bit longer and see? Normally I would have just taken her but due to my financial postition I may have delayed this. I want to know what is wrong but I dont want to pay lots of money for them to tell me continue to rest her!!

grrrr horses!

Sorry it was so long
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I would take her as it has been going on a little while and if it is something like a tendon injury they can often have reduced heat and lameness after a while but still have issues. Definately worth looking into just incase there is something there. Good luck I hope it isn't anything serious
 
The problem with lameness workups is that there seems to be no end to them, first they flex then they block then they xray then they scan and then when defeated they start talking about specialist workups.

Ultimately they all seem to recommend the same, extensive box rest and then a slow return to work. It seems you didn't leave her long enough after the initial injury.

So - interminable vet visits and bills or box rest (with hosing/magnets/bandages) for a month and then restricted turn out. Personally I would go with the box rest but it won't give you any kind of diagnosis
 
Probably no need for a diagnosis as you already know where the problem is. The hosing may be working, but fundamentally she needs to rest it. Also an anti-inflammatory such as bute will help for 2 weeks. I'm sure your vet will say the same. If she isn't hopping lame, probably better to give her anti-imflammatory drugs and rest! if she's calm enough to stand in. If not, you may have to sedate her with sedalin too. Not cheap either, but easier to do this now for a relatively short period of time than have a long term lameness.
 
Yes, I would most definately have the vet. A lameness work up should not cost the earth - and you need to know what the problem with the horse is. A good equine vet will also not prolong the process just for the sake of it.

It's such a worry when they are not right. But he's been 'wrong' for quite some time now. And I would say needs a professional to assess him.
 
This is quite worrying if you do not have the money for the vet after six weeks of off /on lameness what would you do if your horse was seriously ill?
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How would you afford the vet then?
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I'm not picking an arguement but I do find this quite worrying. Personally I would get the vet sorry
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Probably no need for a diagnosis as you already know where the problem is

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I think that is really dangerous assumption to make......
 
Its not an assumption is a statement. And as its prefixed by Probably means it doesn't come with a guarantee.

However, as a windgall appeared and heat and swelling were obvious in the joint there is nothing more a vet can tell you in terms of diagnosis. They cannot tell you how it happened, only confirm what it is and how to treat it. If you read about windgalls you will see what is most likely the diagnosis.
 
If the OP new what was wrong with the horse - I suspect a call would have been made to the vet immediately it went lame. Rather than waiting some 6 weeks - and then asking on a forum whether a vet should be called.
 
In your position I would talk to the vet and explain the financial position you are in. Hopefully he will try to keep bills as low as possible.
I would then follow his advice....

I do think you have really pushed your luck each time by bringing her back into work the minute she has turned sound or even soundish. If you aren't having a vet then you need to seriously rest her and then when she is sound rest her again for a while before very careful rehab. I would not be checking her on a lunge very often or trotting her up regularly. I would leave her for a minimum of 6 weeks and then look again.....
 
I agree with misst - she needs box rest and box rest means box rest. Not trotting up, tight circles or in hand walking. Box rest and bute. Remember vets aren't mystics! they look for the most likely cause of any lameness, and you have already described these. I doubt nerve blocking and flexion tests are even necessary to diagnose with these symptoms.
 
Haha - my horse is insured and I would need to put a claim in to cover the cost of a lameness workup. if she was seriously ill I would also use my insurance. If she was seriously ill I would not be debating this! All I was saying is things are very tight for me at the moment and £120 xs to pay is a months livery for me and giving her time off is free.

The windgall disappeared after one night on bandaging as did most of the heat and swelling. I agree with mother-hen in that I bought her back into work too soon initially and have probably done more harm or delayed the healing. I am pretty sure with time and rest she will come good but in the back of mind I would like a vet to scan and confirm if there is any damage to the tendons/ligaments so I can take it from there What I dont want is to take her to the vets and come away with nothing found and told to carry on doing what i'm doing. Yes I could box rest her but I would need to sedate her which adds to my financial problems.

if she had stayed the same as last week or got worse I would be definitely taking her but now she has shown improvement I have a dilemma.

I think just will ring the vet and ask them for their advice. They wont look at her if she is not lame come tues night which is probably why they did not insist on box rest though they also agreed she would be better out than in if she was going to get stressed in the box.
 
"probably no need for a diagnosis", if this were true then I would be out of a job! I am, fortunately, still in long trousers. The reality is that without a diagnosis then treatment will always be speculative. What if the effusion is as a result of a chip fracture, or a tendon tear and continued exercise is making things worse? In my experience clients struggle to differentiate between an articular and non-articular windgalls. The causes for both are legion and range from the innocuous to the career ending, but will have the same external sign, it sounds like you have paid an insurance premium, a lameness that persists for six weeks seems like a pretty good time to call it in.
 
The first thing you need to do is check your insurance policy. You should have notified your insurer about this vet visit, whether or not you have claimed, as if you haven't it will predujice (sp) future claims. Most insurers give you 60 days from the first incident in which to claim, so you probably have a week or so left to start a claim. If you aren't going to claim, you still need to tell the insurer.

As she is insured, I would phone your insurer tomorrow (check your policy re. how long you have to make a claim from first noticing the problem) and tell them she is having a full lameness work up. They won't commit either way but will tell you to go ahead and (try to) claim the money back from them.

Personally, as she's insured, I would throw everything at it. She's young and the insurers should pay for the invesigations. I would only keep resting an uninsured horse, personally. IMHO you are wasting your time by keep resting her - all that happens is you run out of time to tell your insurer or make a claim, and you may end up with big bills eventually anyway.

Start off by calling your insurer in the morning, and take it from there. I don't understand why you say "your financial position". If she's insured then you will only need to pay for your excess, which is probably about £150, so why delay? Most insurers will settle directly with your vet.
 
chestnut cob - £150 is a sum to find when things are tight, especially if the horse appears to be improving. I don't think treacle_beastie would have hesitated for a moment if the horse was still significantly lame.
 
Stranger 1612, the HO wanted an honest opinion from other horse owners who understand how expensive vets bills can be, which is why we all tried to give her that. Of course there is always the chance that the outward signs can be caused by something severe, as the HO stated in her earlier post. All horse owners realise this, but we all know having owned horses for years that sometimes you have to take an educated path of least resistance, and early diagnosis is quite often an educated guess not always by a vet who afterall would need to spend £££s to find out for sure.
 
t-b hun, if it was me and I'd tried hard to resolve it myself but hadn't had much success, I'd be thinking I needed some experienced input now in case it was something serious that no amount of cold hosing or bandaging would cure. That's the issue I think. It hasn't gone away with sensible self-help so is it something more serious? Only way to know is a specialist lameness work up x
 
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chestnut cob - £150 is a sum to find when things are tight, especially if the horse appears to be improving. I don't think treacle_beastie would have hesitated for a moment if the horse was still significantly lame.

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It might be but generally speaking, if the horse ends up needing a lot of vet treatment and you have missed the cut off date for telling your insurer (and therefore not able to make a claim), then you'd need to find an awful lot more money to treat it, plus would prejudice your insurance for future claims as well.
 
Completely agree with you, my pony has just left Liphook having had surgery on her annular ligament & a tear in her DDFT, she wasn't lame, even David LLoyd at Liphook said she was only slightly off on flexion, he found the tear when he went in to operate on the annular ligament, she had had a "windgall" for a while & it had gone a bit hard, had her scanned as precaution & decided to do the annular ligament which was thickened so she could recover over the winter. Had I self diagnosed the result would have been a completely torn DDFT instead of a tiny tear right on the edge with a good prognosis. Why do people mess about with stuff for 6 weeks when potentially this could be a really serious injury. Sorry lecture over, get the vet.
 
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