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I can’t tell if this is last month’s original abscess or a new one…..

It doesn’t matter…the treatment doesn’t vary much…..

Addy’s on her feet and moving better now…..

She’s had a low-grade temperature…the abscess has been oozing a mixture of blood & pus…..

I know it’s gross…but it’s good it’s open and draining…if only to relieve some of the inner hoof pressure from the compressed fluids…..

However…because it’s open (with the blood involvement)-(along with the low-grade temperature) antibiotics are necessary to avoid infection…..

Sometimes I get really tunnel-visioned…Suzanne-Annette had to remind me to start a series of SMZ’s (Sulfamethoxazole+) to keep any infection under control…..

…..I hadn’t gotten there (in my head) yet…..

…..(The Wonderful World of SMZ’s)…..

Addy’s such a big girl…(there’s one pill for every 100 pounds)…so she’s getting 18 pills twice a day…..

…..How do I do this?…..

…..with my trusty 60ml syringe filled with the pills and water…..

I shoot it down her uncooperative gullet…as I’m perched on top the mounting block…while my tall/younger daughter holds her head up…..

She’s a good girl…she gets a carrot afterwards/as a reward…(plus it makes her swallow her medicine so she doesn’t spit it out)…..

…..And Now…I treat her hoof…..

It’s painful for her…getting it up and holding it isn’t easy…we have a hoof-cradle for that…..

…..(people with Shetland Ponies don’t need a cradle…old women with Clydesdales do)…..

Her hoof needs to be picked out thoroughly…(and gingerly)…all the residual crud has to be brushed off…..

…..to begin with…I smeared Ichthammol in the smelly hole on her sole (where the abscess had blown out)…..

…..I cut a water-proof-ish patch to keep the Ichthammol-goop in place…(okay…it was a square I cut from the cat food bag/as I went past it in the garage…but it worked)…..

…..after spraying everything with iodine (including myself)…I wrapped her whole hoof in VetWrap (I love that stuff)—(anything that will stay on a draft horse hoof is a big thumbs-up in my book)…..

…..(What’s VetWrap?)…..

There are a lot of schools-of-thought where abscesses are concerned…..

…..I opted for not soaking her already soft hoof in warm Epsom salts water…some do…(it draws out the abscess)…..

…..I also only wrapped her hoof for a few days…to give the Ichthammol a chance to draw out the garbage…..

Then I stopped wrapping but continued cleaning and spraying her hoof with iodine…..

…..(I can only find the weaker iodine these days…I prefer the stronger stuff…but the cottage-industry of crystal-meth-making has made finding the strong stuff impossible)…

…..Thanks Guys…..

…..(Veterinary Iodine & Crystal Meth)…..

Now…at this stage…Addy’s treatment is a lot of repetition…..

Antibiotics…picking…and spraying…..

Mary Constance suggested spraying 1/2 iodine with 1/2 formalin…she said it was super at drying out an abscess…..

…..but I was quickly running out of SMZ’s and I had no formalin/(formaldehyde)…..

Enter Doctor Brigid to the rescue!…..

…..(to be continued)…..

 

 

 

 

#coflex #vetwrap

#certifiedathletictrainer #breakingbad

#formalin #formaldehyde #crystalmeth #SMZ #sulfamethoxazole #hoofabscess