Fat Hind Leg... No Lameness, No Heat...

[scribbles]

My lovely wonderful self-destructive horse did it AGAIN! She somehow scraped up her L hind, nothing too terrible, just a bunch of little cuts and scrapes, nothing major nothing to worry about, looked just fine. BUT then two days later, leg is massive. She still has wonderful floaty trot, no heat, but MASSIVE leg. (fetlock to hock, a little bit in the front of the hock, a little bit in the pastern) IDK whether to worry about it or not... This horse is going to be the DEATH of me for being so self destructive!!!

[tBHj]

In the fall my horse cut the outside of her RF leg. It was the same size of her knee all the way down to her fetlock, no heat and she wasn't off on it. My vet was at the barn looking at another horse so I asked him to have a look at it as I have never delt with a front leg that was that swollen before and he said to keep it wrapped for a few days and keep riding her. It was normal within a week.

[HenryisBlaisin']

I had the same thing happen with a tiny cut on the hock. Vet came out, diagnosed cellulitis and had us do 10 days of SMZ's and 7 days of poulticing, normal riding but wrapped with polos and cold hosing afterward. By the end of the week it was almost gone, and was totally gone after two weeks. Vet said that even minor cuts or abrasions can bring it on.

[scribbles]

i thought cellulitis had to be hot, ive never experienced it, so I might be wrong, but i thought it came with heat...

[SLW]

Ya know, my 3 year old colt keeps getting scrapes on all of his legs. My pasture is treeless, the fence has hot wire to keep them off it and still he gets caught in something. I think he is related to your horse. :p

In November he had a fresh round of scrapes- LR and RF- and after 4 days the LF did not reduce in size on it's own or with hydrotherapy. Like your guy, mine was weight bearing and otherwise fine. To ward off cellulitis my vet had me give him a course of Uniprim/Tucoprim and within 36 hours the leg reduced in size and continued to do that each day. The concern was that he had an "iceburg" cut on that LF, a cut that on the surface looks minor but actually goes a little deeper. Might be something to consider with your horse.

You could always do a sweat wrap for two days to see if that helps.

And of course, the colt has a fresh set of scrapes on his LF as of last week. I cannot figure out what he is getting into. :( He was born on this place but this nonsense began last summer. Sigh.

[dalpal]

I had the same thing happen with a tiny cut on the hock. Vet came out, diagnosed cellulitis and had us do 10 days of SMZ's and 7 days of poulticing, normal riding but wrapped with polos and cold hosing afterward. By the end of the week it was almost gone, and was totally gone after two weeks. Vet said that even minor cuts or abrasions can bring it on.

This. :yes: When my mare had cellulitis it was not hot, just a fat leg.

Furzone wraps for three days....that's all we did with hers and it went away.

[SLW]

i thought cellulitis had to be hot, ive never experienced it, so I might be wrong, but i thought it came with heat...

You don't need heat present for cellulitis to set in.

[scribbles]

Yeah, I have no idea what mine might be getting into either... we have hotwire as well.

I am thinking about sweating it, maybe I will see where that gets me, and then think ab antibiotics...

[scribbles]

You don't need heat present for cellulitis to set in.

Good to know

[razzletazzle]

I second the idea of a Furzone sweat!

[Donkey]

I third the sweat but.... if the filling does not improve with light exercise (hand walking or light work) I would be more inclined to call a vet in sooner rather than later.

[scribbles]

The filling does improve, but does not completly reduce with work.

[naturalequus]

I had the exact same situation this last fall with a mare. Minor scrapes that healed as usual, but the leg remained full (but no heat and no lameness), despite cold-water hosing. Her leg was swollen hock to fetlock, though the pastern was still pretty tight.

Took her to the vet and had her x-rayed as well as ultra-sounded to figure out what was wrong. Ultra-sound showed edema in the leg. That's it. Not even any tendon involvement. Wrapped it, put her on another round of antibiotics (just in case), cold-water hosed, exercised her, and turned her out (we had penned her, as she was on a bit of a diet, haha). Essentially the best thing you can do with edema is to exercise exercise exercise - pump the fluid out of the leg. However, IME, it might not fully go down immediately; I find sometimes 'scarring' will remain but will gradually decrease/disappear over the period of a year.

I'd have her checked out to make sure there is no bone or tendon/ligament involvement (esp the latter, which can occur easily - I've had that one occur to, though it was minor, because I 'waited to see'), however it is probably just simply edema or such.

[Eventer13]

The filling should go down but it won't necessarily go away with work (and will likely come right back after the horse stands in a stall for a few hours). The sweats should do the majority of work pulling the edema out, so I'd continue to sweat and wrap. Try to turn the horse out as much as possible, and you can also hose the leg for 15-20 min with high pressured cold water to help push the edema out.

My horse got cellulitis a few months ago, and still has a very small amount of filling left in the leg that just never went away. I'm hoping it will go away on its own with more time.

[scribbles]

Hey, just wanted to thank everybody who suggested furozone sweat! her leg went right down with it! :)