Curve Ball

[Arrowbarcattle]

I think that I need some guidence on this one. Went to trim a laminetic horse at the In-laws today and stepped in over my head. The horse was exibiting all of the classical symptoms of a laminetic yesterday, but was not real ouchy. Today, he would barly put any weight on his right front. His front hoofs are overgrown in the heals putting his phalanges at bad angles, so I was going to take the heals down some, to give him some relief until I could get shoes on him this weekend. Just a side note, I am pretty new to the buisness and have been working with a CJF once a week for a while now. Just been doing trims on my own for now and he is supposed to be out this weekend to oversee my first shoeing project. Anyways, after I had cleaned out the sole and before I started paring anything away I notice a weird growth on the sole just before the white line. It protruded up about 1/4" to where the surface of the hoof wall would rest on the ground. Yes, the hoof wall is about 1/4" below the surface of the sole and needs trimmed. But, before I did anything I wanted to investigate this growth a little. I carefully pared it away, expecting to find an absess or something but found nothing. So I pared away some of the dead sole from the rest of the hoof and all was well until I palpated the sole with my tumb. A black substance squirted out in to different spots towards the toe and the horse went balistic. After he settled down I picked the foot up again to investigate and found that the entire perimiter of the sole was "spongy". I did not go any ****her than this. I was unable to reach my vet or the CJF. I will make calls in the morning. Anyone ever see anything like I have explained? What am I dealing with here. I did not get any pictures, but I don't know if they would help much at this point. Anyways, any feedback would be appreciated.

Tyler

[Rick Burten]

Sounds like p3 is rotated and that you opened and vented a rather nasty abscess. You were wise to stop what you were doing and to wait until you could talk with your mentor.

It sounds to me as though radiographs are in order before any more work is attempted. I would arrange for both you and your mentor to be present when the vet is there so that should the vet want any work done, it can be done with him/her present.

[Phil Armitage]

If it were me, I would put foam blocks on right away while your figureing things out. Doesnt hurt to error on the side of caution, things can go bad real fast.

If your not familiar with this, The natural balance web site and Dr. Steven Ogrady's web site has great instructions. Dr. Ogrady's site shows how to use the 2" dense foam that you can purchase at a lumber yard or hardware store that has building materials. Usually the foam is blue. Has to be dense. Also need a lot of duct tape. The trick to keeping them on is makeing sure you tape from the toe and over the heel bulbs.

Hope this helps.

[Arrowbarcattle]

I was able to get ahold of my CJF and the vet this morning. CJF was sure that it was a bad abscess and that I should try and open it up some to let it drain well. The vet concurred with the CJF. Vet also advised to get the horse on some penicillin to help with the recovery. I am familiar with the foam block protocall but would like to check out Dr. Steven Ogrady's web site. Can you provide a web address.

thanks for all of the input.

Tyler

[Phil Armitage]

Here is the link to Dr. Ogrady's site.

http://www.equipodiatry.com/