Posted by Quintin Wiseman on June 12, 2001 at 21:40:25:
In Reply to: Re: 21 year old mare posted by Bert Brinson on June 11, 2001 at 23:46:41:
: Quintin, I would greatly appreciate some more details on this case. I recently had a foundered 15 yo mare that I worked on. She had been on a weekend trail ride, when on Sunday they noticed she was severely dehydrated and was lame. Luckily there was a vet there who recognized the warning signs and started treatment. She returned home and the lameness subsided but returned a week later. Owners called a vet and had xrays taken, slight rotation on xray. Vet suggested keg shoes to elevate sole from ground contact. I was called (first time customer), mare had exceptionally long toes(50 degrees), so I removed excess and set the mare at about 53 degrees and put shoes on. Mare seemed better but then took a turn for the worse,came back and packed feet with equithane sole pack,vet took more xrays and revealed more rotation and air trapped in foot (never knew about that). Customers contacted previous owners and horse was moved back to them. Don't know what more I could have done at the time but am always looking for better ways of doing things. Thanks for any input.
Maybe you could have tried to place the mare in a reverse shoe with a rolled heel. I say this because of the fact with rotation of P3 I have found that by supporting the posterior part of the foot and lowering the heels in attempt to realign P3 with the ground surface you must also eliminate the pulling and tearing affect of the wall away from the Coffin bone and as long as the toe is in contact with the ground and bearing wieght this is going to influence more rotation even though you had equithane in the foot. The reverse shoe allows you to shift weight bearing to the rear of the foot thus increasing breakover with no stress involved in the toe region of the foot. It is also very important not to apply any sort of pressure in front of P3(or on most laminitic horses forward of the point of the frog) support from the point of the frog to the rear with equithane or a open toed heart bar although if you have not applied many heart bars be very careful. As far as air trapped in the foot, If I were a betting man I would place my anvil on what is really being seen in the radiographs is torn laminae with resulting abscess which will probably come to show itself real soon. Internal abscesses have a way of looking like air pockets. Well I hope this may have helped you. KEEP YOUR BACK BENT AND YOUR ANVIL DENT FREE. Quintin