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Discussion on Stall lime on wound
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Member:
Gingin
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Posted on Wednesday, Aug 3, 2005 - 10:07 pm:
I need your advice, please.....I board at a barn where the owner and friends are old time, long term horse owners. Recently, one of our youngsters got kicked and ended up with a nasty cut on one of his front legs. Now my course of action would have been daily cold hosing and administration of Nolvasan without bandaging (funny area on the leg, bandage would not have stayed put) after initial cleaning of the wound with Betadine or such...What happened is that after the owners did just that and the wound was nicely draining and starting to look good, the barn owner talked the woman into pouring peroxide into the wound and then put stall lime on it because this is "what we have always done" and its the "only thing that really works"....today I ended up taking care of one of my friend's mare who came in from the field with a nice big cut on the inside of her hock... after I cleaned and dressed it, guess what the recommendation was..."put stall lime on it...its the same stuff that's in this fancy wonder powder anyway". Now I don't want to belittle someone's experience with this kind of treatment (especially since I get reminded that this is what granddad and his dad did as well and they have over 100 years of experience between them!!!) but my gut-feeling tells me that caustic powders have their place in wound treatment and are not the be-all for every injury. I also wonder whether it is really safe to put stall lime on a wound...I recognize that Wonder Dust does have 71% hydrated lime in it, but I would not necessarily put this stuff on a fresh, deep wound anyway...maybe later when it is almost healed but definitely not initially...
Can you please help me understand whether lime is safe for wounds and if yes, when? I am not sure I will ever use it but it would at least make me feel more comfortable next time I see it put on an injury....as to the peroxide, my understanding after reading Dr. O's site on wound care is that it kills live tissue and actually delays healing, so I would probably not use this stuff on a regular skin wound.
If it turns out that lime is actually a bad thing, how can I make the owner and his friends understand that they should not be doing this....HELP!!!!
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Member:
Canter
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Posted on Thursday, Aug 4, 2005 - 8:09 am:
Christine, I can't answer your questions as to whether or not this is appropriate wound care, but as to how to make the barn owners understand...I would simply print out DrO's response and with respect and defference for their experience, show it to the owners and nicely request that all future treatment of YOUR horse be run by you (or a vet) first. There's little you can do (other than to educate) other horse owners if they choose to follow the barn owners remedies, assuming that it is incorrect. (My gut would tell me the same thing...even if stall lime is technically OK, I can't imagine that it is still antiseptically clean, such as lime packaged specifically for wound care)
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Member:
Paul303
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Posted on Friday, Aug 5, 2005 - 3:07 am:
Oh boy, I certainly can't see stall lime. Dad and Grandad did not have the benefit of years of modern research done by top people ( nor did they have Dr.O ). In Dad and Grandad's time, there were next to NO products to treat horses, or for that matter, any other animals - there was just not that much of a market for animal medical products. Years ago, I was told that the only treatment for deep cuts was to gather
(filthy) cobwebs from your barn rafters and stuff them in the cut.
It's an icky position to be in, I've been there. A couple of times, I just had the vet come out and had him write REALLY CLEAR directions, then I posted that on the stall.
Sometimes it's worth it to pay the vet just to overrule these old beliefs, when you're at somebody else's mercy as a boarder. Tell them you've been meaning to call the vet about something else, so he might as well look at the cut while he is there.
I bet Dad and Grandpa never vaccinated for WNV, RABIES, EIV, etc,etc, or wormed with ivermectin, sent samples to labs...so many things that are normal to us.....they COULDN'T do it because they didn't exist.
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Moderator:
DrO
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Posted on Friday, Aug 5, 2005 - 6:44 am:
Christine you may not be able to convince them. The problem is they can point to wounds where this is what they did. You can get a wound healed this way and if not all the way through the skin might not even make much different but with a significant wound this stuff takes more time and results in a larger scar. The issue for you becomes what will you do if your horse is at risk.
DrO
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Member:
Gingin
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Posted on Friday, Aug 5, 2005 - 9:20 pm:
Thanks everyone for your input and suggestions! I take it from Dr O''s comments that at least stall lime is not super dangerous (correct???) and at least won't do significant damage.
Since I have NO PLANS OF EVER using this stuff on my horse, I will follow the suggestions on posting very clear instructions on my horse's stall when she needs care for an injury. Fran's comments reminded me that we actually do have a "manual" at the barn in case someone wishes to look up care things...I will start a new section there and excerpt Dr. O's summary for wound first aid and long term care (or is it ok to just print this out and stick it in the manual???)....Dr. O, in case there is some info on the utility of lime for certain types of wounds, could you please point me to this? I think rather than me trying to just totally ignore them (I couldn't and wouldn't want to convince them of lime being bad anyway....after all, what do I know.....) and this issue never going away, it might be better to define when stall lime would be an "option" (cringe!!!!...yes, I have heard ALL the stories of what awful wounds were cured just because of lime  )...this might settle it....I hope!
Christine
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Member:
Paul303
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Posted on Saturday, Aug 6, 2005 - 1:55 am:
Hey, Chris! Sounds like a good plan!
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Moderator:
DrO
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Posted on Saturday, Aug 6, 2005 - 7:17 am:
The article on proud flesh in the Wound Topic talks about the potential, though unrecommended, use of such caustic agents in horses.
DrO
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