Wound treatments

[Santa_Claus]

My girl has got a rather impressive kick on the inside of her near hind just above the hock which she received on Thursday. She has had a collection of antibiotics which she is still on to combat infection and I am applying manuka honey to the wound after cleaning and hosing the leg/wound.

Vet is obviously happy with me using the honey but am wondering if anyone else has any bright ideas to encourage it to heal asap. Ideally it would have been stitched in terms of the size but due to the location vet decided was best to leave open as would almost certainly have been torn open multiple times whenever the leg was flexed.

So yes any bright ideas?

 

[monkeymad]

My mare cut the front of her pastern on Christmas day, resulting in a big skin flap. I cleaned it thoroughly with hibiscrub and bandaged it, but it didn't knit together (like your horses injury it couldn't have been stitched and kept opening on every movemet my mare made). I thought it would just have to granulate and also applied manuka honey. However it took ages and after 2 months it looked exactly the same. I did a search on here and found people were recommending - and I can't remember the name - ??equiaide?? Its fairly expensived (about £35 for small tin), but it was fantastic. You literally paint this liquid on (it looks like grey paint) and then just leave it for a few days, then wash it off and repeat. It was great as it also kept the dirt out of the wound. I will find out the name of it tomorrow, but really recommend it for wounds that are in difficult places .

 

[4x4]

There is an Equine America one called Dermagel or similar.

 

[Britestar]

I have a chap who decided restricted grazing was not for him, and 7 weeks ago made an abortive attempt to jump out the paddock, resulting in 60 stitches on his shoulder. To be honest, we have left it totally alone. Its is such a place its impossible to cover it.

To start we were clenaing it with hibisrcub, but after the dead skin was cut away, leaving a triangle shape of open wound - about 6 x 8 inches on the 2 short sides - there has been little we can put on it.

Its healing really well, and it will just take patience and time.

If you use anything, go for moist healing if you can.

 

[SusieT]

Bandaging. With a moist non stick dressing, tbh the honey I'd save for the granulation stage-it wll just be diluting all the healing cells at the moment. If the wound is an opener, the leg needs to be bandaged.

 

[StormyMoments]

cant remember what it was called but we used this clay stuff on a horses leg when it had a large wound on its cannon bone that couldnt be stitched it was really good and stops mud getting in etc and lets them go about their norml buisness sorry not much help but derma gel is good too and alu spray - you get it from the vet just a spray on aluminium like a spray on plaster and takes the granular tissue back so leaves less of a scar

 

[Santa_Claus]

thanks guys for the suggestions. vet said to leave open and to be honest given its position it would be a PITA to bandage securely! It is staying very clean in terms of no dirt/straw getting in as she rarely lies down in her stable and the mini (normally starvation!) paddock she has been put in is lovely and dry. Vet is preferring her being out but restricted mainly to keep the swelling under control and also she is a rubbish box rest patient

I have been strongly recommended to use intrasite to help with the skin healing back across. None of the local pharmacies are big enough to stock it but should have some arriving in a day or two by post. On the plus side this morning for the first time since she was kicked there was little to no swelling and she was sound (but those were expected to occur hand in hand as the celluitis was causing the mechanical lameness!)

This was it day 1 (a few hours after injury and after being cleaned out by vet) and on comparison to today it does look a lot better as the exposed area has reduced significantly now.