Windgalls - your experience with draining them please!

[Horseochondriac]

Hi, new here! I'm a Brit who grew up with horses in the UK but I now live in Australia. I find things a little different here... especially the approach to veterinary care. Anyway, recently my horse got very stressed (a long story) and ran around like a madman and when I got home he had exacerbated a pre-existing windgall. He is a 6yr old OTTB and the windgall occurred about a year ago when he was behaving like a kite on the end of a lunge rope in a too-deep sand arena. I have never been too concerned about it as it has never caused lameness and apart from being unsightly was not causing any problems. Cut to last Monday and I got home from work and the windgall is massive and there is fluid on the back of the pastern. I took him to a well-respected horse vet (spent time at Rossdale's in Newmarket) to have it ultrasounded. Didn't find too much except on the leg with the windgall there were changes to that tendon sheath, a bit of thickening which was not present on the other leg. All other structures looked fine both horizontally and vertically. Vet couldn't tell me if it was a new injury or the old injury that had been aggravated. He opted to push all the fluid into the pastern, drain it out (about 30mls!), inject corticosteroids and rest horse until Christmas. The leg looks perfect and so far (6 days) has not refilled. I am walking him gently for about twenty mins per day and he is turned out (I don't have stables anyway) with a retired companion mare.

My question is this: has anyone has experience with draining windgalls? If so how long did they take to refill and did they refill to the same size or was it lessened? Was there any benefit at all? I am very skeptical as I have always been told there is no point draining windgalls as they will pop straight back up. I have some Back on Track wraps on order and am using DSMO and feeding MSM - really hoping for a positive outcome.

Any anecdotes about windgalls welcome!

 

[Meowy Catkin]

Sorry, no experience myself, but happy to *bump* your thread.

 

[be positive]

I have a livery here with similar, the tendon sheath is affected so the plan was to drain it but as she has a lot of other things going on that is on hold for now as there is no real discomfort and we have no idea how much it is due to her other issues so not much help other than to know it is something a vet over here will do in certain cases where draining could help prevent the tendon sheath/ tendon being damaged.

 

[Horseochondriac]

Thank so much for replying! Good to know it is something that still occasionally happens! I will let you know if I have success. Leg is still down currently one week post draining but still only very gentle exercise.

 

[JCW]

My horse had windgalls that went really hard and were putting pressure on the tendon sheath so were drained and injected with steroids. Unfortunately this was repeated quite a few times until I took his shoes off(might be a coincidence) and although he still has windgalls they have not gone hard since and caused him any problems. I think the vets referred to I think as tenosynovitis.

 

[be positive]

My horse had windgalls that went really hard and were putting pressure on the tendon sheath so were drained and injected with steroids. Unfortunately this was repeated quite a few times until I took his shoes off(might be a coincidence) and although he still has windgalls they have not gone hard since and caused him any problems. I think the vets referred to I think as tenosynovitis.

Interesting, the one mentioned above was going to have the same treatment but her hocks are being done first and we are waiting to see how she responds to that before dealing with stage 2, the front fetlocks, stage 3 the KS as they are all likely to be linked, my instinct was to get the front shoes off, which has been done, I felt if the feet are functioning better the leg should improve, hopefully she will respond as yours has and need no more intervention.

 

[Red-1]

I had one pop up a thoroughpin, massive. I used a dressage boot on the hock (like half a tennis ball pressing not the area each side) to squash it and it went down. No steroids and only about 4 weeks reduced work. Never came back up and she was competing at a decent level BE.

Everyone said it would pop back up as the capsule would have been stretched. They were wrong! I think because it was not big for long.