Re: sore, sore, sore

MA Sandy <sandrabrown_...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

Glad he's doing better.

>Just checking, but laminitis will NOT
> cure itself, correct?  He wouldn't just get magically better without a
> vet's intervention?  Am I not seeing the forest for the trees?

A mild laminitis, given NSAIDs, removing from grass & hard feed and
providing sup****tive footing - sure it'll settle back down.  Louise
was very mildly laminitic after her first trim.  She got banamine and
spent a few days on wet sand ****fting her weight back and forth.

I've yet to meet a horse without a digital pulse. ;)  What you're
looking for is increased digital pulses - bounding.  What's normal for
one horse might suggest laminitis, or an abscess, for another.

Last year I was working at a barn, and they brought in a gelding from
the field head-bobbing lame.  He was bright and cheerful, with a good
appetite.  I remember watching him ripping into his hay.  He was very
lame on one front with increased digital pulse and some heat in the
foot.  I would have guessed abscess, but it was laminitis.  Darn horse
rotated by morning, despite prompt veterinary intervention (the doc
arrived before I finished - 40 minutes after they found the horse
lame) and a correct diagnosis.  That was an odd presentation, but
still, the vet caught it, and the horse recovered well.

The barn owner, a very, very experienced horsewoman of 40+ years,
vacillated for a moment on calling the vet.  Then she ran through the
litany of things it might be, besides an abscess, and made the call.

Nancy DeMarco
Mason, NH