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  Discussion on Stifle lameness
Author Message
New Member:
Fillypow

Posted on Wednesday, Jun 4, 2003 - 8:03 pm:

One of our mares has come up lame--not three-legged lame--just 'off' in her right rear quarter. We could find no kick or wire injuries. My husband is a life-long horse shoer, and I have been training race horses for over thirty years. Her feet check out fine, but when he was shoeing her, she had a hard time on the right hind--trying to tip over to the left, which says "stifle lameness" to both of us. So just to run my usual test, I painted her whirlbone, stifle, jacks and outside of hock, and fetlock with Dr. Ball's Iodine paint. Her stifle is the only site that scurfed, so that is the obvious problem. The problem we have is 1)what could have possibly caused the lameness and 2)how do we treat it? Bute hasn't helped, I think her lameness is a little more pronounced since we painted her with the iodine paint. My husband is putting Pol Cat poltice tonight. She could be a little skin sore from the iodine paint. This mare is a 12 year old Standardbred that is used for trailriding, but we haven't had time to ride yet this year.
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Wednesday, Jun 4, 2003 - 11:00 pm:

Hello Carol Ann,
The problem is the lack of willingness to stand
on the lame leg or the scurfing test are not accurate ways to localize lameness in the leg. Without knowing the location we cannot speculate on your two questions. But if you are interested in causes of stifle lameness see Equine Diseases » Lameness » Diseases of the Upper Rear Limb » Disease of the Stifle » Overview of Stifle Lameness. But the article on localizing lameness in the leg might be of more import, » Equine Diseases » Lameness » The Diagnosis of Lameness in the Horse.
DrO
Member:
Tcascio

Posted on Friday, Jun 25, 2004 - 3:48 pm:

Any suggestions on how to treat stifle problems. We have had this horse for 3 months when we brought another horse over for a few nights. The next day he started to buck. We took him to a trainer and discovered he was limping on his left leg. She said he was sore in his stifle joint. We are assuming he was kicked or injured when the other horse was here. It has been about 3 weeks and we have been putting a muscle ointment on it day and night (thermoflex). It seems to help if we are regular with putting it on. We can walk trot him for about an hour before he starts to favor the leg, then we get off. Is there anything else we can do for this? How long would this type of injury take to heal? Another thing to point out is that he is a POA and was very overweight and under conditioned when we got him. We started to ride him 3-5 times a week immediately and he has lost some weight and is slowly building up muscle. Could this be caused by lack of conditioning?
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Sunday, Jun 27, 2004 - 6:24 pm:

Hello Tami,
Lack of conditioning might cause a horse to injure himself, but lameness is not a sign of lack of conditioning. I recommend you start with the article associated with this discussion, Overview of Stifle Lameness, to understand that "sifle lameness" involves many differt conditions, how to differentiate them, and their treatment. Just select it off the navigation bar above.
DrO
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