Ozzie lamed up

[Ed Thayer]

I was doing horse chores last Tuesday afternoon and all the horses appeared to be fine. Milling around the paddock and hanging out. I opened them into our front pasture and locked them in to clean poop in the padock. When I was done I opened the paddock back to them and went into the house.

My daughter Erin went to feed them about 2 hrs later and came in the house and said something was wrong with Oz. I followed her to the barn and Oz was standing in the paddock with his head down ears back and lifting his right rear leg off the ground. He would not walk or come into the barn and was in obviouse distress.

I did get a halter on him and coaxed him into his box stall and tried to get him to eat but he would’t. After investigating to see if we could find any injury, we noticed that he had swelling above his hoof and there was a noticable buldge in his right groin. We called the vet, they suggested icing the swollen area and giving bute to try to reduce swelling. We were thinking that it was a soft tissue injury to the leg, maybe from one of the other horses kicking him. And then thinking the buldge was a muscle strain due to keeping his leg lifted. We kept him in the box stall for the night.

Wednesday morning, he seemed to be putting his foot down, but still not comfortable with putting any weight on it. We did another dosage of bute and iced it again. The swelling looked to be going down a little on his hock.

By Thursday afternoon, the swelling had migrated up the complete leg and his hock was extremely swollen as well as the complete leg. And the area surounding his sheath was swollen. We called the vet again and they came for a farm call on Friday morning. When they looked the horse over, she was very concerned that the lymph node in the right rear groin was very swollen. She took blood and then were going to call with results.

She called Friday afternoon and said that he has a low white blood cell count, high parasite count and is anemic. She was not convinced that the anemia and white blood cell count are related. She thought that given his history, that even when we keep to a wormer schedule that it might not be enough to kill whatever he might have.

We have taken him off the bute, started with steriods and are giving him an antibiotic for possible infection. We are also doing high dosage of worner to try to kill the parasites. She told us to be prepared for the possibility of lymphoma. We are very hopeful that he will recover after the treatments he is getting for the next 10 days and we will find that it was only a muscle strain in his groin area. We are very concerned that the vet can not diagnose a specific condition. There could be a chance that we will have to be referred to a more specialized facility if this treatment does not work.

We will keep you posted.
Ed

[Jean]

Ed, my fingers are crossed for OZ. I sure hope he just slipped on some ice or something.

Jean

[jen judkins]

Ed, I certainly hope it turns out to be nothing serious! I feel for you…having seen Reno in bad shape for so long. Just make sure you are supporting Ozzie with probiotics and good nutrition. Let me know if I can help in any way!

[TBigLug]

Something else to think of is food, maybe Oz got some of that Hoary Alyssum in a bale of hay. We had a neighbor who’s horse was highly reactive to it and caused his legs to stock up and make him lame. Not sure but something else to keep in mind.

No matter what, I hope everything goes well and it was just a slip on the ice and OZ gets back to normal soon!

[Ed Thayer]

Thanks for the thoughts.

Oz seems to be doing better. The swelling in his leg has gone down significantly. There is still a large bulge in his abdomen area. Is it possible for a horse to get a hernia?

Ed

[CharlyBonifaz]

Is it possible for a horse to get a hernia?

yes; my guess? haematoma?

[Ed Thayer]

Update on Oz,

He seems to be improving each day. The swelling in his groin and abdomen has almost disapeared. His right hock still has some minor swelling though.

I am still puzzled as to what really happened or is happening with him. He is eating like normal and drinking plenty. I let him out with our other two horses today and he was trotting and bucking and truly seem to enjoy being out in the pasture to roam around.

After spending more than $500.00 hundred dollars in meds and vet calls I would have liked a diagnosis. But I guess that is not an exact science?

Really all that matters to me is that he is feeling better. I have been working on my bob sled and hope to have it ready to go in the next week or so. Hopefully Ozzie will be ready to go in a 2 to 3 weeks.

[jen judkins]

@highway 13722 wrote:

After spending more than $500.00 hundred dollars in meds and vet calls I would have liked a diagnosis. But I guess that is not an exact science?

I feel your frustration…really! But I’m glad he is out of the woods and recovering! Jennifer.

[Ed Thayer]

I should stop whining, I know you have spent a lot more on Reno’s rehab.

Are you looking for a sled or sleigh? I saw something in another post.

[Ed Thayer]

Well, Ozzie took a turn for the worse agian on Sunday. Extreme swelling, and discomfort again in the same leg and groin area. He appeared to be recovering well, although the swelling never really disapeared.

I have been doing a lot of research on his symptoms and have found a condition that matches his symptoms almost exactly. I am not a Dr. nor claim to be but I was overwhelmed when I read the description, symptoms of this disorder.

Equine Lymphangitis, Also called stovepie leg and Monday morning disease. Have any of you ever heard of this or experianced this with your animals? I guess it is rather rare.

The vet is coming back tomorow to look at him again, I am not going to say anything about my thoughts untill after Dr. Fisher examines him. I do not want to steer him away from other possibilities.

Ed

[grey]

I was under the impression that “Monday morning disease” was another term for tying-up, and was a nutritional disorder.

Just looked up “lymphangitis” and what I’ve read on it was pretty hand-wavey.

Have you checked his temperature?

Do you have a pair of hoof pressure testers? An abscess in a hoof can cause a horse to do all sorts of weird things to try to keep their weight off the painful foot, thus turning up with a bizarre assortment of swellings and lamenesses.

Is he kept in a stall at all? If so, is it a box stall or a tie stall?

My apologies if these questions were answered in other posts at a previous date.

[Ed Thayer]

Last time the vet was out his temp was normal. His blood work did not show signs of infection, however they prescribed intibiotics anyway.

He is not stall tied and has access to the paddock, pasture 24/7. I thought maybe he was stocking up but that will usually go away imediatley after exercise. I have been walking Oz on the lead line up and down the road and the swelling does not change.

I do not have a hoof pressure tester as you describe.

[Simple Living]

Ed,
Is that the same as what Dr. Beth Valentine is talking about with EPSM?

Gordon

[Author]

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