I'm definitely a few days late with this post, as I intended to make it on Monday, but oh well! Better late than never. Last Thursday (Feb 20th), I pulled Banner out as normal for a casual dressage ride. Everything seemed nice and normal until I started grooming and saw a big fat spot on his RF leg. It was super unusual swelling and definitely sent me into a wild panic. The outside of his leg looked 100% normal, but the inside had odd swelling in a place that made me fear suspensory or possibly tendon damage.
I immediately called my vet in a fairly worried, but trying to stay level-headed, state and left a voicemail explaining what I saw & wanted to get her out as soon as I could fit into her schedule. Bless her, she called me back within an hour (she was in the middle of acupuncturing another horse but called as soon as she was done), and we were able to make an appointment for Friday. The plan was to keep him in his stall, wrapped overnight and see what we found the next day.
My horses never actually get locked in their stalls, so I had to call my dad to help me hang a gate on the back of Banner's stall so we could get him locked inside for the night, and afterwards I immediately drove to TSC for a bunch of shavings to get his stall bedded deeply. Standing wraps went on both fronts and I proceeded to worry my brain to bits through the night. The level-headed part of me tried not to overreact, but the anxiety part of me screamed that this was bad and I had to prepare for worst case scenario.
Luckily, he didn't seem lame from what I'd seen walking him up, but I was too paranoid to check at any gait other than walk until we had seen the vet. Sometime around 11pm that night, my brain finally quieted enough for a few brief hours of sleep, but around 2am something woke me up and I couldn't fall back asleep until 4:30am. A few more hours of pretty restless sleep before I got up at 6am and immediately went out to check on B & his leg.
My tiny amount of hope that it just magically would disappear faded immediately after I removed his wraps. It was still puffy and warm, although possibly slightly less than it had been the night before but I wasn't sure. I headed off to work to wade through a miserable day as all I could think about was my poor little B. It almost became worse once arriving home though because then I had no distractions.
Luckily I didn't have to wait long before the vet came out around 3:00. She palpated his whole leg extensively for about 5-10 minutes before letting me know that she didn't feel any tendon issues and she had found an incredibly small scrape on the back of that leg. I'd looked for one when it first occurred but couldn't find one. It was teeny. like 1/8th of an inch in width and only about 3/4 of an inch long. Buried under all the winter hair, it was easy to miss. It even took her a couple minutes before finding it because of it's small size.
We took him out for a brief session at the trot on the lunge to see if he was lame, and much to my relief he was quite sound. The consensus was that somehow he just banged himself just right in order to have his leg blow up. We decided to keep him on a couple more days of stall rest to ensure the swelling went completely away and that he would stay sound before releasing him back into his big pasture, but luckily Monday arrived, and the swelling and heat were gone, and I had a very sound horse still.
I haven't managed to get a ride back on him yet since it happened but we are slated for a light ride to triple check his soundness probably tomorrow. Definitely playing it extra safe, but he really stressed me out good on this little injury.
The only good thing that came out of all of this, was that I finally managed to take Charmer to a lesson for the first time since late last summer!! That will be its own post (hopefully for tomorrow), but at least there was a small silver lining. I'm beyond grateful to know that it wasn't nearly as bad as I feared and Banner is so thrilled to be out of his stall.
I immediately called my vet in a fairly worried, but trying to stay level-headed, state and left a voicemail explaining what I saw & wanted to get her out as soon as I could fit into her schedule. Bless her, she called me back within an hour (she was in the middle of acupuncturing another horse but called as soon as she was done), and we were able to make an appointment for Friday. The plan was to keep him in his stall, wrapped overnight and see what we found the next day.
My horses never actually get locked in their stalls, so I had to call my dad to help me hang a gate on the back of Banner's stall so we could get him locked inside for the night, and afterwards I immediately drove to TSC for a bunch of shavings to get his stall bedded deeply. Standing wraps went on both fronts and I proceeded to worry my brain to bits through the night. The level-headed part of me tried not to overreact, but the anxiety part of me screamed that this was bad and I had to prepare for worst case scenario.
Luckily, he didn't seem lame from what I'd seen walking him up, but I was too paranoid to check at any gait other than walk until we had seen the vet. Sometime around 11pm that night, my brain finally quieted enough for a few brief hours of sleep, but around 2am something woke me up and I couldn't fall back asleep until 4:30am. A few more hours of pretty restless sleep before I got up at 6am and immediately went out to check on B & his leg.
My tiny amount of hope that it just magically would disappear faded immediately after I removed his wraps. It was still puffy and warm, although possibly slightly less than it had been the night before but I wasn't sure. I headed off to work to wade through a miserable day as all I could think about was my poor little B. It almost became worse once arriving home though because then I had no distractions.
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| He weaseled so many cookies out of me over the 3 days he was stalled |
Luckily I didn't have to wait long before the vet came out around 3:00. She palpated his whole leg extensively for about 5-10 minutes before letting me know that she didn't feel any tendon issues and she had found an incredibly small scrape on the back of that leg. I'd looked for one when it first occurred but couldn't find one. It was teeny. like 1/8th of an inch in width and only about 3/4 of an inch long. Buried under all the winter hair, it was easy to miss. It even took her a couple minutes before finding it because of it's small size.
We took him out for a brief session at the trot on the lunge to see if he was lame, and much to my relief he was quite sound. The consensus was that somehow he just banged himself just right in order to have his leg blow up. We decided to keep him on a couple more days of stall rest to ensure the swelling went completely away and that he would stay sound before releasing him back into his big pasture, but luckily Monday arrived, and the swelling and heat were gone, and I had a very sound horse still.
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| So happy to be out of jail |
I haven't managed to get a ride back on him yet since it happened but we are slated for a light ride to triple check his soundness probably tomorrow. Definitely playing it extra safe, but he really stressed me out good on this little injury.
The only good thing that came out of all of this, was that I finally managed to take Charmer to a lesson for the first time since late last summer!! That will be its own post (hopefully for tomorrow), but at least there was a small silver lining. I'm beyond grateful to know that it wasn't nearly as bad as I feared and Banner is so thrilled to be out of his stall.
if i had to guess based on the picture alone, i would have said 'splint.' i have a zillion nearly identical pictures from when charlie did his haha... probably a good call to get it checked out by the vet either way - and glad it doesn't appear to be anything more serious!
ReplyDeleteas a fellow owner of a delicate horse who swells up if you so much as give him a mean look.... i totally feel ya on the roller coaster!
At first I feared splint, but no hard bone involvement worried me! It was super squishy and strange!
DeleteApparently Banner is much more delicate to little dings than I thought he was!