It seems that I have plagued with vet issues lately. It all started with Semper last fall, then Lily, and now Bob has a little issue going on. His hind legs started to get "stocked up" in the stall. At first it was just one and pretty minor. Then it got worse. Then the other hind leg started swelling. With exercise they would go down, not completely but some. A week ago last Monday I had just had enough... and called the vet. Decided to take Lily and have her rescanned to see how her healing was coming along. I am all about the "two birds with one stone" thing.
The vet scanned Lily first and she is doing marvelously. Visually they look much better to the Vet. I see them everyday so it is hard for me to see a difference. It made me feel better to have her comment on how good they look. When she did the scan we couldn't see any open spaces, the tissue is looking very good and got the o.k. to increase her paddock size. The vet even said maybe some light riding in 6-8 weeks. Since Lily doesn't understand the concept of light riding, I think we will just wait it out till the healing is just a little further along.
Then Bob. He was pretty swollen in both hind legs. No visually apparent reason. No cuts, scraps, etc. The vet presses her thumb into the inside of his leg right about his fetlock joint and holds it for a about 30 seconds. When she moves her thumb out, there is a depression that stays for minutes - this is called pitting edema. She explains that this means that each individual cell is retaining fluid. Not that the leg has fluid building under the skin.The body is not being efficient enough to get all the lymph moved out of his limbs. It can be caused by over work or lack of movement and excessive heat exacerbates the problem. She watched him move and he isn't lame, but he isn't comfortable either. She flexes him and when I trot him off, he is lame for the first few steps. She decides that we should bute him and turn him out for 7 days to see if we can get it to go down all together. I take him home for turn out and give him a loading dose of 2 grams of bute. The next morning - no swelling. Both hind legs are back to normal. I give him another gram of bute and go off to work. When I get home - his legs look perfect - but I followed Drs. order and give him another gram of bute with is dinner. The next morning when his legs still look great I decide to see what happens if I take him off the bute. And guess what? Nothing, nada, none, zip, zero, no swelling. He looked fine with just the turn out.
Bob was rechecked last night and the vet gave him a clean bill of health. We talked about what causes the "stocking up", how to avoid it and what to do when I happens.
Solutions that we talked about are: cold hosing his legs after he is worked and turn out. Pretty simple.
I haven't ever had a horse that did this so any insight from those of you that have been there would be more than welcome.
Another feather in Bob's cap... he has never been a horse that likes having his hind legs messed with, but he has been a perfect gentleman during all this. Absolutely perfect.
My horse had that problem. It was quite frustrating, although he was never lame. It started after he slipped badly at an endurance ride on the ever-so-aptly-named Wipe Out Hill. The next morning both hind legs were swollen, the left so badly he couldn't bend his hock to get in the trailer. The stocking up continued for nearly a year. I finally decided to put him back in shoes after being dissatisfied with hoof boots for him. The swelling vanished. In six months it has never reoccured. Don't know if your horse is in shoes or not, but that's what happened in my case.
ReplyDeleteValerie,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your respone...Bob does have shoes on already. But that is good information to know. I think part of the problem with this episode was the drastic change in temperature that we had. Went from the mid 80's to over a 100 in less than a week.
Good to hear you got it figured out with such a simple solution -one that you already wanted to do anyway. :)
My mare Sonita had this problem. Regular exercise kept it in check, heat definitely caused trouble.
ReplyDeleteAfter I sold her (with buyer duly warned) it became much more of an issue.
She wasn't getting regular exercise and lived in a stall, run set up.
The problem became huge. Her legs began to swell more and more.The swelling became almost impossible to manage.
A grass hay only diet eventually helped control it. Now, in her golden years, she lives on dry Colorado pasture 24/7 with little else and is completely well.
mugwump... I wondered if feed affected it. I tend to feed a little on the hot side and thought maybe I should back him off the alfalfa and grain. I asked the vet and she said...No feed has nothing to do with it - the thought in the back of my mind was "yeah right". I do believe that the way we feed has a little something to do with it ALL. I have arranged for pasture turn out for him and will take him off the grain and hopefully that will be enough to manage it. Thanks.
ReplyDeletekel--In my experience this is almost always connected to being stalled/confined. I wasn't sure from the post, but it sounded like Bob was stalled when the problem began. If the horse can move around enough (big pen or pasture), it mostly doesn't happen. But it sounds like you have this figured out.
ReplyDeleteAs for the feed--I'm kind of on the other end of the scale. All my horses, even the hard keeping, using horses, get at least 50% grass hay. And the easy keepers get 75% grass hay. The old horses get equine senior added. I've never had a horse I couldn't keep slick, shiny and feeling good without straight grain.
Laura - he was stalled when it started. I think it was a combination of things. Being stalled, not being ridden for a couple of days and a heat wave just put things into overdrive. He now has turn out for several hours during the day and it seems to have disappeared.
ReplyDeleteI have backed him off the grain completely and he is on a mixture of grass hay and alfalfa with a supplement.