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  Discussion on Wrenched Knee
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Member:
Sefiroth

Posted on Monday, Apr 28, 2003 - 4:40 pm:

Background: I purchased a 4 yr old 17.2h and 1600lbs Percheron gelding 3 months ago. Picture's in my profile. He's out on pasture 24x7 in a 4-acre lot with my STB mare. Part of the pasture is a big hillside leading up to the run in shed and feeding area and has been worn down to dirt. That plus 3 days of steady rain have made it a mudslide.

4/25 Friday morning: Horses are fed with no signs of any problems.

Friday afternoon: Barn owner goes out to feed and observes my gelding limping on the right front. Calls me and says to come out and look, thinks he might have picked up a rock. After work I go out to take a look. He's walking on the leg, but very short strided and a big head bob. No toe dragging, but he is paddling it more than normal. I picked out the right front foot and didn’t find any rocks or bruising. No heat in the hoof or pulse. No heat anywhere in the leg. He wouldn’t allow me to pick up the left front. I also noticed a little bit of puffiness on the front of his right front knee. I picked his foot back up and tried to flex it. I brought his hoof up to his elbow and he about fell over in pain. At this point I figured he slipped in the mud and twisted something. Gave him 2 grams of bute and called my trainer. He was supposed to leave for the trainer’s barn the next day. (Silly boy couldn’t have behaved himself for just one more day.) The trainer said to bring him on over, as he'd do better on stall rest in any case (no stalls at the current boarding barn, just pasture), and if not better by Monday it'd be easier for the vet to see him over there.

Saturday morning: Two more grams of bute given two hours before the 20 minute trailer ride to the trainers.

Saturday afternoon: Trainer calls and says he's nearly 3 legged lame, almost falls over if he tries to turn around, and doesn’t want to walk. Tells me I'd better call the vet for an appointment on Monday and he'll give Golly one gram of bute twice a day for the next few days.

Sunday afternoon: I went and visited Golly at the trainer. Took him out of the stall the first time since Saturday afternoon. He walks off 75% better than he had been when I saw him last on Saturday morning. Nowhere near 3 legged lame like the trainer said. He only had a slight head bob, little bit of short stridedness, no paddling, and a little bit of hesitation in turning.

Today: Just got back from visiting again. He's about the same as yesterday but he let me pick up BOTH front feed to clean them out and the puffiness seems to be gone from his knee. The trainer is amazed at how different he is from Saturday. We figure the trailer ride over, even though it was short, made him worse. If he doesn’t continue to improve he'll still see the vet, but for now we're going to keep him on the bute and stall rest.

My questions are: Does this seem like a simple wrenched knee? Do they usually resolve this quick? Could our guess about the trailer ride be correct? If he did fracture something, wouldn't he still be in great pain since I doubt 1 gram of bute at his body weight could do more than take the edge off any pain?
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Monday, Apr 28, 2003 - 7:48 pm:

Hello Sharon,
There is not enough information to know from your post to answer most of your questions, it really takes an examination to localize the lameness. I don't find the reaction to the knee flexion specific, in fact if he let you put it up to the elbow before reacting, this may NOT be the knee.

Also you cannot rule out some types of fractures from the improvemnt on Bute: fractures of some of the small bones or nondisplaced fractures may behave this way.
DrO
Member:
Sefiroth

Posted on Friday, May 2, 2003 - 10:56 pm:

Dr O,

We took Golly to the vet on Thursday since his improvement leveled off and he needed his teeth done anyway.

You were right. The vet found an abcess in the toe of his right front. It had already started to drain out the bottom of the foot but the vet opened up the hole more to alow better drainage. Is it possible that since I was holding onto his toe mostly when flexing his leg that I could have put enough pressue on the toe to have caused the pain reaction that way?

The vet at the hospital never even seemed to consider anything else was wrong and seemed to think it was just the abcess causing the lameness. And he is almost 100% better now that its been draining for a while.

Do abcesses also cause the horse to show more pain when on soft footing than hard? I'd have thought it would be the other way around.

Guess I'm off to read the article again on abcesses!

~Sharon
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