Wingalls normally there but bigger tonight!!!!

[Laura6544]

My 21 yr old mare has had windgalls since I bought her at 5yrs old, I had her vetted then and was told that she had them but they wouldn't cause any problems for the type of work I wanted to do. I have recently started to bring her back into work due to me breaking my back and have so far only sat on her and walked around for 5 minutes twice. Tonight her windgalls on her near hind are like large grapes and are hard, no lameness, no pain to touch but concerns me as they are clearly larger than other hind leg. I have already ordered some suppleaze gold on saturday as I felt at her age it wouldn't do any harm to get her on a joint suppliment and now this! I have thought about seeing how things progress and if no improvement calling vet in, just scarred myself to death reading about a windgall thats turned out to be a hole in a tendon! No heat in leg/joint/foot is there anything I can do to reduce swelling and do you think suppliment will help, this mare has never had a days lameness in her life (touch wood) so although I have read various things have no hands on experience with leg problems and do not want to make things worse by turning out/ not turning out, cold hosing etc. Any advice greatly appreciated and thanks for reading this far!

 

[Birker2020]

Ok calm down x Firstly if there was a hole in her tendon you would expect to find her crippled. Secondly, if there is no lameness it would be unusual for it to be anything too detrimental. It could be that she has an inflammed tendon sheath. I would start by cold hosing the affected area using a steady stream of water (not a great big surge like I see some people doing)!! If you can do this two or maybe even three times per day all the better. She could really do with some anti inflammatories too I would have thought and ice the leg twice a day if possible (be careful if you put ice directly onto on a wet leg unless you have some tissue seperating the ice from the leg itself otherwise you could cause a freeze burn.) Unfortunately if it is the tendon sheath your mare will require box rest, anti inflammatory drugs and possibly injections into the tendon sheath itself as this is what happened to my horse. I would get the vet out if this is still causing a problem as by the time you read this reply it will have been a couple of days. x P.S just a thought but would she stand with her leg in a tub of cold water? If you could do this and possibly swirl your hand around or maybe even let the end of the hose into the water to create a kind or swirling action all the better.

 

[Laura6544]

Thanks so much for replying, I did cold hose her and her leg has returned to normal now (slightly puffy windgalls as usual), massive relief but still going to give her the suppliment and keep a careful eye on things. Lady who owns the yard tells me they were galloping round that morning which is quite unusual, praps this was what instigated the increased swelling. I'm ultra paranoid now she's older and remember a horse many years ago having to be destroyed because he had severed his tendons or ligaments, can't remember the exact details but it was devistating because he was only 7yrs old and a beautiful otherwise fit and healthy animal. Thanks again.