Posted by Betsy on February 24, 2003 at 12:47:04:
I've posted before about my TB gelding who, I thought, was out of the woods after WLD.
A sand crack in his "good" foot has been suspicious for several months, dremeled lightly as necessary, but has become unstable -- when I pick up the foot, the crack gets wider, when he steps down, the crack closes up. I noticed the instability yesterday, and I noticed a couple days ago that he was pointing that toe a little when standing in the crossties. He has been NQR under saddle for about a month, very similar to when we found the WLD in the other front foot 18 months ago.
When we fought WLD the last time, instability in a similar crack was an indication of trouble. I'm getting worried that he now has a pocket of fungus in his good foot and we are going to have to go through all this again. His feet are 1000% more correct than they were before all this began. He is shod in natural balance shoes and has had treatment consistent with what most of you recommend, by the best referral farrier in our area.
My question: He absessed in this foot last fall, for no apparent reason, and when we replaced the shoe we put a plain leather pad on to protect the crater in his sole. Since winter was approaching, we went to snowball pads after that. Is it possible that something as simple as snow pads could affect the frog pressure and the hoof enough to cause the WLD bugs to really take off? The absess was big and ugly. Is it possible that the bugs got into the absess track and sat there all winter?
I will see both my vet and farrier this week and will discuss this with them. He's not due for a reset for several weeks but I would take him back to the referral guy in a heartbeat if it sounds like we're headed for trouble again. Thoughts?