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  Discussion on Deep nail puncture
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Posted on Thursday, Nov 11, 1999 - 7:20 pm:

9 days ago, my horse punctured his foot with a nail. About one inch penetrated, when the nail was removed, blood flowed freely. My vet was there within two hours, the puncture was acbout 1/2 inch in front of the frog, an xray with a probe revealed the tip to be VERY close to the coffin joint. He received 5 days of IV antibiotics, and is now on oral antibiotics for annnnother five days. He has a heavy iodine, salts wet to dry dressing and hasn't been out of his stall except to hand graze. THere is no lameness at the walk and no heat or pulse. Hoof testers two days ago were entirely negative. Will he completely recover? any long term sequelae? Can there still be a risk of bone infection with such early antibiotic treatment?

Posted on Friday, Nov 12, 1999 - 7:10 am:

Hello Deborah,
Was the nail hole pared open to increase the drainage and allow medication to get into the wound? What are heavy iodine salts? Has your horse received a recent tetanus booster? Nail punctures like this happen every day without serious complications but they do require proper treatment.
DrO

Posted on Friday, Nov 12, 1999 - 8:00 am:

Dear Deborah, it sounds as if you are going to be lucky. My friends 4 year old stepped on a multi-inch spike which went up through the hoof, winged the coffin joint and stopped somewhere up in the fetlock. Luckily she had her mobile phone and the vet was able to come to the horse within a few minutes. He had antibiotics straight away which everyone feels was his lifesaver. The next day he was taken to a nearby equine hospital and operated on to flush everything out. Dr O, I think the op is called a Streetnail (but I don't know if I've spelt that right). Luckily it was 100% successful and after a period of daily cleaning and dressing with iodine and months of box rest he is back competing and having fun. The vet said that if he stayed sound after coming back into work he thought there would be no problems with arthritis or other nasties and so far everything has been AOK.
Good luck with your horse.
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