After Bestie was diagnosed with cellulitis on October 22, it took a while for the swelling in her leg to go down. Laurie poulticed her with the Sore No More poultice each evening, and I would wash it off the next day. I have to admit that the first day after poultice #1, I had the irrational hope that her leg would be back to its svelte shape. No such luck. We poulticed her leg and soaked her hoof in a povidone iodine/epsom salts/warm water bath through Thursday, when she let me know that she was done with soaking by kicking the bucket over. She had stood quite complacently Monday through Wednesday for soaking. Laurie texted me that evening, "Apparently she feels the same way about the poultice" - Bestie had given her a run for her money during application time, moving around her stall. So we decided she was feeling better.
The leg swelling had gone down quite a bit by Thursday; in fact, her hock looked great and most of the swelling seemed to be confined to just above her fetlock. I had my fingers crossed, because we had family coming into town and running out to the barn would put quite a dent in the family time. On Friday I decided the swelling was down enough that I could take Saturday and Sunday off, but to be safe, I tacked Bestie on to the vet visit scheduled for Monday - fall shots time and teeth floating for the other horses. No texts from the barn over the weekend, which meant no change for the worse. Whew.
On Monday, veterinarian Jana Froehling of Full Circle Equine visited and said that she thought the cellulitis had been taken care of, but that Bestie seemed uncomfortable in the stifle in that leg. The cellulitis might have been secondary to some sort of injury. At the walk, she judged her to be 2/5 on discomfort. She thought that perhaps the change in workload (going from 4 rides to 2 shorter rides a week) might have been the culprit due to muscle atrophy. Or it could be a mysterious injury. She prescribed getting her back to work at the walk and doing small hills and poles to strengthen the muscles around the stifle. It's good that Bestie is out moving in the pasture all day. She also suggested continuing the bute for a week or so.
I asked her to look at a crusty spot just over Bestie's back exterior heel bulb. It wasn't flat like a scab. And I had also found little bumps in that same area; when I picked at them they had kind of waxy feeling. I had been spraying the area with the Fungasol just to feel proactive, ha.
Dr. Froehling said both things were a by product of Virginia's clay - that it holds water and affects the hoof with some funky things, like these follicle inflammations. She said if I could pull them off when small, fine, but not to pull the big one because it was pretty deep. She suggested coating it with something like icthammol and wrapping the area to hold warmth in, which would cause the crusty bump to break down. Because it's just a big ol' hardened mess of follicle oil. Yuck. The funny thing is, two days later the farrier came and I asked him about it. He was like, "what, this thing?" and flicked it with his finger and it came off. Bestie never even blinked. It left a rough patch, which I coated with the 3 way antibiotic cream. I'm pretty sure she's sick of me messing with her heel.
For the possible stifle injury, I walked her a bit on Wednesday and today. I've also started doing lateral tail pulls to engage and strengthen the muscles in the area. I found this article on therapy for stifle problems very helpful.
Taking it day by day. Dr. Froehling said to give rehab a couple weeks and then we could see where we're at and talk about next steps. Nice that she has existing clients down where our new house is, although I'm not yet sure where Bestie will head to once we move. Have been looking at barns online but haven't found anything yet that offers full board, has an indoor, and is convenient to the house.
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