he blew it, finally

I know a lot of bloggers try to avoid writing about endless wound or injury care. It gets boring, repetitive, and kinda.... idk, old? Which, ya know, I get. An abscess is an abscess is an abscess, right?

oh hey, btw, in between 40-60* days we got a couple inches of snow. go figure. and i swear, charlie is not as sad as he looks - this was one of his most comfortable days all week, as evidenced by him chillin quietly enough for me to step away and snap a pic. also i *swear* i stood him up inside the barn. he insisted on standing with his head outside tho.

But continuing along with my introspective theme from last week, on what reading blogs has meant for me -- and how much I've learned from all this -- I'm gonna go ahead and post all the details at hand on Charlie's post-nail-puncture abscess care.

dat's a big leg tho. started filling the pan extra high bc Mr Oh So Sore couldn't stand flat on it for a couple days

Mostly for my own documentation. And bc I don't really have shit else going on anyway (only sorta a lie, stay tuned). But also bc so much of what I know about abscess care is not from first hand experience. Rather, it's from observing friends and barn mates, or reading about it on blogs.

the addition of his hay bag to our kit was very much appreciated by Sir

So I'm sharing my own experiences here, to maybe either pay it forward. Or at least expel some words off my chest bc this gal's gotta write something and if it's gotta be about abscesses and soaking my horse's hoof infinitely and forever, so be it, right?

definitely helped pass the time! and apparently was better than takis lol

Anyway. Let's rehash the timeline, shall we? Wednesday a week and a half ago, Charlie stepped on a nail during a lesson. The puncture went straight up into his hoof about an inch, but somehow by the grace of gods missed all the critical structures within the hoof. And the horse seemed.... miraculously unscathed.

yea there's that snow i told you about 

We braced ourselves for the prospect of an abscess tho, and he did ultimately present with some signs of abscessing on Monday night: a very hot hoof and some very slight swelling around the pastern. Also a little lame, tho not classically "three legged" abscess lame.

Farrier pulled his shoe that Tuesday, and the horse ended up on stall rest through Friday morning bc of a very unfortunate miscommunication with barn staff. I had no idea he wasn't getting turn out - and only realized the error when he was suspiciously clean after being unblanketed on a 60* day and I had come to the barn prepared to chisel him out of a crust of mud.

the snow was esp pretty considering the ground was too warm to allow it to stick

Thursday also coincided with Charlie starting to really feel crippled tho. I had been soaking him in epsom salts and wrapping the hoof every day since Monday, but Thursday was legit his first really bad day.

Friday only got worse, and he managed to take off his other hind shoe in turnout. Go figure, after I gave the staff a hard time for not turning him out, he went ahead and wrecked his'self in turnout that very next day....

and natch about 24hrs later, same exact scene but 15* warmer and sunny. looks.... kinda similar? but feels worlds different

So he had one hind sore from the abscess, one sore from losing a shoe but also needing to constantly compensate for the other. Plus his diagonal fore was showing some signs of fatigue. And I legit began to wonder if the horse would goddamn founder on me. Bc Charlie.

I talked with the vet about my paranoia about missing some important warning sign from the nail puncture, and we set a date for "if he's not better by this point, we x-ray."

and, on this particular sunny nice day, charlie was feeling even better. yessss!

I also asked staff to keep Charlie in a small paddock after he lost the other hind shoe to avoid crippling him further on the gravel driveway (vet's rec, I personally am not convinced the road is any worse for him than constantly resting on the unshod hoof....).

His first day in the paddock -- Saturday -- he basically stayed under the run in roof quietly eating hay. Second day -- Sunday -- the barn worker called me soon after turning him out to say he was trotting around whinnying pitifully for his friends. Hallelujah. Horse wants to trot?? Yasssss. Toss that sucker back out with his buddies!!!

photographing a blown abscess is tricky when holding a wet, sore hoof in one hand and a cell phone in the other

I had hoped it was a positive sign he was feeling much better. Lo and behold, when I arrived for our daily bubble bath date that evening --- the abscess had in fact blown!!! Yay!!!!!!!

so i annotated with relevant landmarks. blue line is bottom of hoof. (charlie's shoe is pulled, and he's not generally a barefoot horse, explaining why this has a maybe odd profile). orange line is a very rough estimate of the nai's entry point. red line is where the abscess blew out.

 I mean, he's still lame on it. And I'm still paranoid. But. Ya know. Progress, right?

Anyway. I've been wrapping this hoof a few different ways prior to the abscess blowing. Mostly: a small pack of poultice sprinkled with epsom salts on a gauze pad pushed up into the groove where the nail went. Then vet wrap. Then duct tape.

I included a diaper once or twice, but it proved not effective in muddy turnout situations and lasted the worst, plus possibly irritated his cornet band, pastern, and fetlock the worst after filling up with absorbed mud and water.

Once I forgot vet wrap entirely and just did the gauze pad and duct tape. I was paranoid this would be a bear to get off his hoof the next day... but wet ground conditions basically rendered this nbd. And once I ran out of vet wrap and used elastikon instead. This was maybe the hardest to get off his hoof, but also lasted the best, tho it filled up with mud instead of blowing out.

same hoof, post-soak and post-betadine-flush

Each variation of wrap ended up blowing through the toe. Even when I used patches of feed bags at the toe, which had been recommended to improve longevity of a hoof wrap. Honestly I just think nothing could quite stand up to Charlie's constant resting of the hoof. Tho the wraps lasted longer and were less likely to end up around his fetlock on days he got turnout vs days he spent on his matted stalls.

The best system seemed to be packing the problem area with poultice, since that provided a sticky barrier to any mud that got in the wrap. Also, by the last few days it became apparent that the abscess would blow through Charlie's heel bulb (the telltale sign was his hypersensitivity to any sensation there), so I began slathering the heel with ichthammol too -- which helped prevent anything else from sticking too much to the hoof.

can't recommend this style of syringe strongly enough. they're fantastic -- with a very small diameter, curved tip that fits into basically any space.

Once it finally blew, I decided not to wrap it again bc the wraps just seemed to capture more mud, esp in the area of his heel bulbs. Vet agreed with this too.

So I just soaked again in epsom salts, plus a generous squirt of betadine this time too. Then after soaking, used a curved-tip irrigation syringe to flush inside the abscess pocket with betadine solution. The abscess opening was about a half inch slit, with maybe a nickel-quarter sized squishy pocket underneath.

Flushing it felt kinda gross tbh, but after having to flush his splint abscess wound it really wasn't that bad. This syringe was great tho. Really really good for this job. And I'm oddly relieved to have a fresh supply of them in my first aid kit bc it seems like a versatile tool, esp for a Charlie Horse.

so ya know. he's probably going to live.

So now the hope is that we're on the other side of this thing. It's hard bc it's mud season and keeping the hoof clean is impossible. But I'll do my best. And hopefully the farrier will deem him good to shoe tomorrow too. He needs done on all four anyway, but I'm hoping the farrier sees no reason not to shoe that RH.

We'll see. I'm feeling optimistic. And after watching my best riding buddies fucking kill it this weekend at another Loch Moy cross derby, I am so so so eager to get back at it. C'mon Charlie buddy. I need you, man. Need you to move on from this!!!

Wish us luck!! And in the meantime, I'm curious: Since I've been at this for seemingly ages now, I'm finally feeling like I'm refining my first aid kit for abscesses. The only thing I didn't get to use from my kit are the animalintex pads, but that's only bc his didn't blow out the bottom of his hoof. Otherwise tho I'm kinda pumped by all these great new tools I'm using -- like those syringes.

What are some of your favorite things to have on hand for abscesses? Do you have a favorite type duct tape? I'm using gorilla tape. Do you like vet wrap? Or elastikon? Or diapers? Does it depend on whether your horse is getting turn out or not? And, for that matter, how do you decide on that? Are you like me, wanting the horse out as much as possible? Or does it depend on how crippled they are???? I'm curious!