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  Discussion on Pseudomonas aeruginosa
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New Member:
darlinbm

Posted on Tuesday, May 17, 2011 - 9:53 pm:

My 15yr old Selle Francais was diagnosed with pseudomonas aeruginosa by the university of Florida. We have been on gentamycin and metronidozol topical treatments now for over a month and the horse does not seem to be getting better. He has been lame for about 3 months.

the vets told us to combind the gent. with the metro. and make a paste form. Then apply to his heels (all 4 heels were diagnosed with the infection) then they stated to wrap the heels and continue doing this everyday for a 7 days and we did. Then switch to every other day in which we did and have been doing for 3 wks. There seems to be no improvement and he is not allowed to come out of his stall. Don't the horses need to be moving around to get good blood flow to there feet. The horse is absoulty miserable and seems to be in pain when he walks. I just don't know what to do anymore.
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Thursday, May 19, 2011 - 5:44 pm:

Welcome Brandy,
I am sorry to hear your horse is so miserable. P. aeruginosa is generally considered an opportunistic infection. Has there been any enquiry into why your horse is suffering from this unusual infection of the foot? If there is such a problem until it is corrected you may not achieve success.

Have they considered adding tris EDTA to the mixture it may potentiate the killing of Pseudomonas. If the organism was cultured and had a sensitivity done it may need to be repeated to see if there are now better alternatives.

I would also ask U of Fl if while you are waiting for the new culture results, if you could switch to surardine paste (povidone and sugar) to see if this might be worth trying. In human burn patients it is a mainstay for the treatment and prevention of pseudomonas infection and while in modern hospitals it has often been deserted for other treatments, it is not clear they are better.
DrO
New Member:
darlinbm

Posted on Friday, May 20, 2011 - 9:44 am:

Dr.O:

Thanks so much for getting back to me. They did a culture and came back to me with Pseudomonas.
To back things up a bit...I bought the horse about a year ago and he has one leg with a 1/2 pastern that is white. That foot on the heel has always been crusty and red. His other heels have been crusty but haven't made him lame. I treated them with a topical fungal solution or like a scratches cream. It didn't ever go away but it kept it from getting worse. Around March this year I noticed all 4 heels were getting worse and again I treated it as a thrush or fungal solution. He then became lame and I had the vet out and she looked at him and stated he had an abcess. She blocked his right front as she pin pointed the lamness to his right front. He blocked out sound. so we treated his right front as an abcess and began soaking and wrapping. NOTHING worked. I had asked her about his heels but she stated she didn't see a problem. I tried SUGARDINE and it seemed to make his heel worse but I DID NOT wrap the sugardine I just applied it. So eventully when I took him to UF I thought he had CANKER ALL of the signs were there. UF stated that he didnt have canker and did the culture. UF for me was a 5 hour trip and cost around $1000.00. I cannot afford another trip up there and they want me to come back for a re-check which would benifit the horse but I have to get a ride and it's hard. Another person in the horse community stated her horse has canker and she does 10 Metronidozle pill mixed with water and she gives it to him in his rectum and he is sound and competing at this point. However she has to do it everyday or twice a day. I will call the vets at UF and ask. It just seems like were missing something here. Can he horse go outside and get the blood moving to his feet? We have electromagnetic boots to do treatments. Would that work? He was a big jumper imported from argentina in 2007.

Thanks Brandy
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Saturday, May 21, 2011 - 11:16 am:

Hello Brandy,
As to exercise that judgement will have to be made by someone who can examine the horse. I don't see how magnetic boots are going to help here.

Have you read our article on Canker: HorseAdvice.com » Diseases of Horses » Lameness » Diseases of the Hoof » Hoof Canker (proliferative pododermatitis)? Does this sound like what you are looking at? We have specific treatment recommendations there for this condition.

Brandy would it be possible to post images of the disease?
DrO
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