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Sudden lameness after injurying heel bulb

4K views 3 replies 4 participants last post by  DRichmond 
#1 ·
Last Friday my 15 year old quarter horse gelding got spooked by the farrier. The farrier is the only thing that scares him and we have decided he had a bad experience in the past before I owned him.

As soon as he saw the farrier last week he started running in circles on the lead line ( he has never done this before) and in the process cut one of his heel bulbs on his rear left leg. It happened so quickly that I didn't notice if he twisted his leg funny but something else is wrong!

My farrier said he would be extremely sensitive for a few days and he would come back next week to trim his rear right foot. He was able to trim all other feet but my gelding would not bare weight on the injured foot.

He has immediate lameness and would take extremely short steps with his injured leg (rear left). From his pastern to his hock was moderately swollen for three days. I started him on bute and then 4 days of Penicillin.

Nine days later his has swelling localized to the back side of his canon bone or the split bone. It runs the length of the split bone and his gate is still bad. It has improved alot from the initial time of injury but he still is obviously lame at the walk. He is free to walk around in a large pastern and has continued to eat and drink as normal. I haven't seen him move faster than a walk. At first it was extremely short steps and it would take him half a hour to get to one end of the pasture. Now he is walking at normal pace but still limping badly when walking.

Any ideas on what is wrong???? The heel bulb is completely healed but I am concerned that he is still limping so bad. I saw him roll the other day and it took him about a minute to get up but did so. The only sign there is a problem is the terrible limp. He is in great spirits and acting himself. I am just concerned how this could have happened. He did not obviously fall but did run in a circle where there were some bigger rocks from the driveway.

HELP!
 
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#2 ·
Any time you have a horse that is "three-legged-lame" it is best to call the vet. It sounds like he could have an injury to the superficial flexor tendon, deep digital flexor tendon, suspenory ligament, or the bone. Or any combination of these. Lameness that intense for that long really needs to be checked out by a vet. Hope he heals up.
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#3 ·
First of all, the horse is not "suddenly lame". The horse is responding to being injured, you know exactly when the lameness began to occur. It's not sudden.
Second of all, the horse is three legged lame, you've administered antibiotics and there's no mention of a vet?? NEVER administer antibiotics without at least a phone call to a vet. Administering antibiotics and doing an incomplete course or improper dosage, or using the wrong antibiotic all contribute to the increasing amounts of antibiotic resistant bacteria strains.

The long and the short is - call a vet. Good luck.
 
#4 ·
I agree with affored. If you have a stall or area to confine him, and have a vet out, he'll likely need limited movement for awhile with scheduled walks per vet instructions. Hopefully he'll improve enough in time but he may be limited to light riding.

If he's had a negative experience with a farrier, or for some reason has a very fearful response to that particular farrier, you might try finding a different farrier, one who is competent as well as gentle. Maybe a female, if he's been mishandled by a male farrier in the past?
 
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