The Horse Forum

The Horse Forum (/)
-   Horse Health (
-   -   Lameness (

Alycat 12-24-2009 03:28 PM

I know many of you can not give an answer without seeing my horse but I thought I would just ask and see what people thought.

My horse has been recovering from an infection near the hoof, (I believe it is called the coronet. it is the part where the hoof meets the fur. lol sorry that's the best way I could describe it.) that has caused her to be lame for the last two months.

The vet has given me strict instructions over the course of these two months. First, it was to walk her for 10 minutes twice a day. About a week ago the vet said I could lunge her for a little bit with only nice slow gaits. The first couple of days were fine. She bucked and went too fast but I expected she would seeing she had been locked in a stall for awhile.

Well yesterday I lunged her and she went straight up in the air bucking and kicking out. She was fine just getting energy out, and I continued to lunge her lightly. (making it a shorter lunge session.)

Today I went to lunge her and I noticed that she was limping on the same leg that she had the infection in. (it is possible that I am being overly protective and just looking for a problem. But something just didn't seem right when she was trotting.)

My question is...1. Is it an automatic "death" (for lack of a better word) sentence if she were to be lame on the same leg? 2. Could it be possible that she just made it sore from bucking and twisting around yesterday?

Like I said I realize nobody really knows my horse but I just didn't know if there was any general information anyone could offer.

Thanks from a very worried owner,

barefoothooves 12-24-2009 03:52 PM

Was the infection an abscess or from an injury? If it's injury related, then I would check with the vet about the relapse, as internal structures may not be healed enough, yet. Though too much confinement can slow the healing, and prolong lameness, so slow, easy exercise is usually better if possible than total confinement, for the sake of healing back to a functional anatomy, as well as avoiding the rip-roaring around your horse is doing the first chance he gets.

If it was an abscess, they can reoccur in the same place, especially if the vet or farrier probed it to drain it. The probing can introduce more germs and cause a quick recurrance as you may be experiencing. 9 times out of ten, I feel it's better to let it runs it's course with abscesses, rather than cut them to drain, because of the higher likelyhood of reinfection, and the fact that it's harder to keep the hoof clean after being artificially drained. If allowed to drain on its own *most* of them aren't a problem once they drain, but they can still boil back up, regardless. It usually depends on the reason that it was a problem in first place, if the situation that created the first one isn't remedied, then it can be a vicious cycle.

Recurring lameness in the same leg isnt' necessarily a death sentence, unless there is obvious trauma or this has been going on for months or years, but aquick phone call to the vet could calm your fears.

Alycat 12-24-2009 04:41 PM

Thank you so much barefoothooves. Your information has helped calm my fears that reoccurring lameness is not unusual.

I will definitely call the vet back out but since it is Christmas it will have to wait unfortunately.

It's the weirdest thing. The farrier found an area where she had an abscess but it had healed on its own. But the vet stuck a needle in the coronet (is this correct) and the fluid that exited the needle showed signs of infection.

Thanks for the information.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.5
Copyright ©2000 - 2014, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Search Engine Friendly URLs by vBSEO 3.6.0