HorseAdvice.com Equine & Horse Advice: Hard swelling on outside of knee. Edema??

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	Discussion on Hard swelling on outside of knee. Edema??
Author	Message
New Member: landon	Posted on Thursday, Oct 25, 2012 - 1:45 pm: I have a question. Two and a half weeks ago my horse must have banged his knee really badly. The knee was swollen and incredibly huge. The swelling went all along the outside of his leg above and below the knee. The injury was to the outside of his right front knee. The vet cam out after 4 days when the swelling did not go down and administered 4 days of antibiotics. The swelling went down a lot. At this point (2 and a half weeks later) the outside of the knee is still swollen with the swelling being hard not soft. He is not lame and does not appear to favor this leg. My concern is the the swelling is hard not soft and i want to make sure there is no chance of infection to the knee.
Moderator: DrO	Posted on Monday, Oct 29, 2012 - 5:15 pm: Welcome Heiki, Generally with infection under the skin you will have significant lameness and heat. This sounds a bit like a periosteal reaction where the bruised bone capsule has swollen. These can be quite firm. However the image above is over the knee capsule spanning several smaller carpal bones. A good exam and if that is not diagnostic followed up by ultrasound and radiographs should provide a localization and diagnosis. DrO