Category: abscess

abscess · deworming

Routines

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I stopped by the barn today while doing errands to groom and fuss over Tristan. I got there just in time to see him dewormed.

They also taped him at the same time – 965 pounds and 15.1. A little less weight than I expected but he looks in good trim, so it’s fine.

He fussed about being dewormed. He’s never been good for oral medication. He flung his head and skittered backwards but the barn manager was quick and efficient. I think half the reason he’s still bad about it is that I’m terrible at it – it always takes me several tries to coordinate the tube.

I walked him around the indoor twice and resisted the urge to trot him out. He was eager and happy to go, and the barn manager told me stories about how he plays in the snow and is good buddies with the old dressage horse he goes out with. He’s definitely feeling great, so that makes me feel better about not riding.

He’s getting a massage this coming Sunday, and he’ll be due for the farrier in another two or three weeks. After his new set of shoes, we’ll see how he jogs out.

abscess

No news is…no news

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Well, there is some bad news, which is that Tris is quite lame on his right front. It could be aggravation of the abscess holes. It could be the poor shape of the foot from being left to grow for so long. It could be that he has strained some of the soft tissues and tendons in the foot.

The cure for all three will be time, so for now we are waiting. The real litmus test will be after his next farrier visit, at the end of January. The foot has grown enough that the bottom hole will be almost to the toe by then, and miiiight even open up with the next trim. We’ll see.

In the meantime, he’s happy and I get to see him every day. I’ve been easing him on to his new Reitsport Senior, and he’ll be on full doses by Saturday. He has a turnout buddy, whom he likes enough to do some playing with. He’s even getting a little fat, so we may be easing off his grain a bit. I’m glad we’re in a place where I’m happy to keep waiting, nervous as I get sometimes.

abscess

Make that ten steps back…

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So. The report from the farrier.

As I suspected, Tristan’s hoof was grown out to the point where its flare was putting additional pressures on the hoof wall, separating them even further. This would be exactly why I asked the farrier in MA to trim him before we left.

The farrier will work on Tris in the morning. The holes are expanded to the point that he fears there is a very real chance that as he defines to trim, a chunk will fall away entirely. If that happens, he will have to rebuild with epoxy or by casting the foot.

I have my fingers crossed that his naturally good hoof strength will help him here, and the wall will hold. I don’t know whether that’s a pipe dream or not. After a day spent on the edge of my seat waiting for a diagnosis, tomorrow might be even worse as I wait to hear whether Tris still has all if his foot or not…

abscess

Two steps forward…

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Saturday night, Tris got a massage from a dear friend, and she found and worked through some nasty tight spots from his right front. Sunday, I hand walked him for a bit to get his kinks out, and did some stretches with his right front leg.

Today, he came in from turnout really quite lame on that &$&)€}% right front. He did not loosen out of it with a turn around he indoor, so I cleaned out his foot and soaked it. I am holding off on despair until the farrier looks at him on Wednesday, an event I will hopefully be able to attend.

Sigh.

abscess

Progress!

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Pulling the wrap off Tristan’s foot had mixed success. I mentioned before that I hadn’t taken the frozen ground into account and sure enough, within 48 hours his leg had blown up and his hoof was warm.

I freaked out a little bit, flushed his foot carefully, and soaked it. I gave him a gram of bute right away and left a note for him to get more AM and PM for the next few days. He was still bright and cheerful at least!

The next day the swelling and heat wet down some; I soaked again and devised a wrap of Elastikon and duct tape that coveted the jokes but not the sole. Then I left for Boston for Thanksgiving. When I checked on him Friday night there was no heat and the swelling was nearly gone, and as of today the leg is tight and clean. Whew!

Here he is this afternoon in his side paddock, happy to be out in our first real snow of the season.

abscess · moving to vermont

New Places, New Faces

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I moved Tristan up to Vermont on Sunday, quite uneventfully. We got a bit of a later start from Flatlands for the best of all possible reasons – visiting Lindsey Epstein Pottery’s new storefront and eating cookies thanks to an incredibly thoughtful send-off – and arrived at the barn after dark. Tris was a little snorty but settled down great and ate hay and then grain quite happily.

His stall in his new barn is smaller than at Flatlands, and that first night he did a lot of circling around to try to get anywhere new in the stall, but by the time I visited him again Monday night he had figured out the dimensions and how he could back up and turn around without circling and pacing.

He went out a half-day his first day, and should be going out a full day today; the barn typically does half-day turnout but will just be swapping his pastures so he can stay out the full day. Stupidly, I pulled his foot wrapping on the first day thinking “the ground is frozen solid up here, there’s no mud to get into it!” and then realized a) it softens during the day and b) he has had that sole covered for 3+ months now. I’m not as worried about the sole – he’ll have to toughen it up again sometime – but tonight I am going to do a thorough flush of the holes and then see if a bit of duct tape across the holes will cover the adequately.

Speaking of the holes in his foot, everyone up here is duly impressed. They’ve grown down nicely, and there’s a good 1.5″ of hoof above the holes back to the coronet band. It is not perfect hoof – there is a small bulge still – but it is solid and growing. Now, just to keep it going.

My biggest concern right now is that though I asked the farrier to re-shoe him before leaving, he apparently did not do so, and his toes are getting fairly long, which means the crack in the RF has re-appeared and overall the shape of the foot is not good. The barn manager will be letting me know when their farrier is next due to come out; it may be that we can get him out soon after Thanksgiving, which would be ideal to get a consultation, put a pad back on that RF to help the sole, and trim all around. I’m going to pitch the idea of pulling his shoes for the winter – we’ll see.

That should sum it up. I am LOVING having him only 20 minutes away from home, and only 10 minutes from one of the museums I work at. I have checked on him twice a day without any difficulty, and it will be heavenly to get home at a reasonable hour after work.

abscess · adventures with the vet

Progress

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I realized recently that I have good progressive photos of Tristan’s feet throughout this whole debacle. Things at least are continuing well – no sign of re-infection, he’s comfortable and happy, and the foot is clearly growing out just fine, with no weakness or scarring in the new hoof from the coronet band. It still looks awful, but it’s more cosmetic than anything else.

He’ll get a vet check before we move to Vermont, and I’m on the fence about getting more rads done at that time. We’ll see. The good news is there are excellent farriers at the barn in Vermont, so we’ll continue to get great care going forward.

Without further ado, here are the pictures.

8/16/12: Abscess bursts. Note the crack at the toe.
9/13/12: Second abscess holes below the first, which was dug out. Crack still at the toe.
10/18/12: Growing down quite nicely – new growth from the coronet band, toe crack almost gone.

abscess · adventures with the vet

In which I provide pictures, finally

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Nothing really new on the Tristan front. Flushing and wrapping. He is sound as a bell to the left, even on a tight circle, but still a smidge off to the right at the trot and canter. It looks clearly like a concussion sting, as the farrier and the vet both predicted, from the foot just moving a bit. He looks fine at the walk and is obviously comfortable enough to bear full weight and go for turnout. I could probably walk him on the trails without consequence but I have discovered over the last few weeks just how fragile feet can be, so I am erring on the side of caution and giving him time to grow and get more stable before I stress things.

In the meantime: the vet emailed me the rads of Tristan’s feet, hooray!

First, from June 7: clean foot for comparison.
And now, with holes. You can see the top hole, and the bottom hole, and the track all the way down to the sole.
And the top-down view of the hole, showing its width as well. Eek.

abscess · adventures with the vet

And the verdict is…

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So!

After extensive physical examination, four or five different views on the rads, jogging up and back, and a consult with the farrier, the verdict from the vet is that my gut was right. Tristan just has a whopping big hole in his foot from the abscess.

It was kind of freaky to see on the rads, honestly. You don’t like to see holes in your horse’s foot. But we were able to clearly see that there was no involvement whatsoever with the joint capsule or the coffin bone, no hint of a keratoma, no pedal osteitis, and the big lump above his coronet band is just a particularly nasty bit of scar tissue that will need to grow down.

The farrier’s opinion is that another 4-6 weeks of growth will make a big difference in his comfort level as the holes will grow down far enough to make the foot much more stable. Probably the holes won’t grow out entirely for another 6 months at least. For the foreseeable future he’ll need to be flushed and wrapped regularly to make sure no new debris gets caught in the tunnels in his foot and re-start the abscess.

Farrier put a shoe but no pad back on so that the foot can continue to flush properly. The vet tranq’d him for the shoeing so he would behave, and he was pretty stoned and pathetic. He got about 2/3 of the way through his soaking before he started to wake up, and since he couldn’t have hay, he was pissed about the soaking. It was an adventure.

I’m glad to know that nothing truly dangerous is going on, though, even if it will be a while before we’re back in action. He’s losing muscling across his back, and it hurts to see. We should be back in serious work just in time to be stuck in the indoor for the winter, too.

abscess

The New Normal

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I had a dream last night about galloping my horse, really giving him his head. It was a nice dream.

The farrier took a look at Tristan yesterday and determined two things. First, he has a drainage hole on the bottom of his foot, too, on the toe in line with the other holes. Not a huge surprise and even a bit of a good thing as now there’s a clear entrance and exit for flushing.

Second, he is so sick of being fussed with that he behaved incredibly poorly for the farrier. So poorly that the farrier could not get a shoe on the RF even with help from barn staff. I was not pleased; it’s important to me that my horse behave politely for the professionals in his life. Back to remedial pony school for him.

I got to the barn last night to see that the antibiotics had been delivered, huzzah. We’ve got the routine down, now. Flush with betadine and hot water with syringes with very thin tips, disinfecting the length of the hole. Then soak with his new soaking boot (more on that later) for 30 minutes. Then mix up the antibiotics, pack the hole, cover with gauze, cover with vetwrap, cover with duct tape. The whole process takes about an hour and a half.

The vet’s coming back out soon-ish to check up and to take an x-ray. Tristan is only a tiny bit tender on the foot, which the farrier is convinced is simply some movement of the hoof wall from the sheer size of the hole. If he were more lame, I’d be worried about bigger problems. I’m still concerned enough to want the x-ray, but it should be more of a confirmation than a surprise. Resectioning is still a possibility, but something the farrier is firmly against.

I finally asked about a schedule, and pending the vet visit, it looks like another shoeing cycle will make a big difference in Tristan’s comfort level on the foot. He just needs to grow out more foot to be more stable. So another 4-6 weeks, and maybe we’ll be back on track.