Bait and Switch

Well Stampede is a master of disguise. Thursday I walked him in from the pasture before his vet appointment and he looked pretty much sound, except for his leg was abnormally large with edema. That’s right, our furry friend decided his hoof was better overnight, only to get lymphangitis instead.

All wrapped up, vetrap and a standing wrap with plastic wrap underneath.

For those who don’t know, lymphangitis is a severe and recurring form of cellulitis. Both of those terms essentially mean that the horse (humans can get this too) has a huge leg. You will remember Stampede’s last bout with this fun from my post last July. Due to the fact that Stampede has had cellulitis numerous times, vets frequently call it lymphangitis now.

Strange opening at the front of his coronet Thursday evening (after vet came)

So this time we had a big right front leg, which hadn’t been big since I believe 2008. The biggest danger with cellulitis/lymphangitis is that if you don’t get the edema out fast enough the leg could just stay big forever. The second danger is that the leg stays extremely big for so long that the skin starts to slough off (ick).

This time Stampede’s edema was not as big as it has been in the past and did not follow his usual protocol of sudden overnight elephant leg and off his feed. He has continued to eat (so far). The vet immediately gave me three different meds for him. These included Dexamethasone, which is a big time anti-inflammatory, a diuretic, and antibiotics. Stampede is getting the Dex IV daily from the trainer, then the remaining items by mouth with a syringe. Thankfully he has been cooperative as usual.

So overnight all of these drugs did their job and Stampede’s leg was mostly back to normal on Friday. Yesterday most of the edema had made it down to his ankle and below, so I opted to get on him and work it out further.

After two weeks off, he was happy to be doing something besides limping around and eating!

It is really hard to hold the phone still and post at the same time!

I leave you with some pictures of the smaller furbabies being adorable while I worked at home this week. Please make the snow stop!

Everyone on the bed in the spare room while I work nearby

Juneau using my work files as a pillow