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Having One Of Those Horse Weeks...

Ashleigh Lawrence

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
My vet recommends the application of cold tea as a useful (and cheap) anti inflammatory. Trouble is, it does rather tend to run down your arm, so no need to apply the fake tan on your arms! I hope he gets better soon. Horses eh? :rolleyes:
 

Serafina

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
NO! He is WORSE. :hurt:

I was literally on my way to Vermont to go ski at Okemo this morning when I got a text from my BO that his eye was swollen completely shut. Of course, we turned around right away and came back. It was totally shut, and completely ooky, and I called the vet again. He said to give him some banamine today, no warm compresses, and call tomorrow AM if it's not improving. It wasn't improving when I went to the barn for Banamine Round Two this evening. :(

I did take a wet warm cloth and just kind of sponge it a bit this morning, which he seemed pretty happy about.

At this point, I'm wondering if he doesn't have something up under that lid. Piece of hay, or a laceration with mouth bacteria in it or something. My bet is that I'll be seeing the vet again tomorrow. Would way rather be out skiing than kicking my heels and playing phone tag with the vet, but there's no way I'd be able to enjoy anything at all with all the worry over Huey hanging over me.

Little blighter. At least we're bonded enough that he will stand still and take the banamine without me having to halter him and tie him up. He doesn't like it, and he protests, but eventually, he'll just stand there and go along with it. Gotta be happy about the small things...
 

contesstant

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Oh gosh, that is NOT good! Eye injuries can turn bad so quickly with these darned horses! Did your vet look for lacerations or examine the cornea earlier?
 

Serafina

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Vet was out on Tuesday, to look at the cornea and adnexa, said they looked OK. There's a little laceration on the lid - point of impact with whatever...other horse's teeth? Other horse's jaw? Other horse's browbone? No telling what exactly he collided with, other than that it was something on the other horse. Probably not a hoof, given the absence of the hoof-shaped hair loss that often comes with a kick. Would have been a pretty hard place to get kicked, too. There are, however, bite marks everywhere, so I'm going to go with "Face-Biting Fight". Is this an infection in the lid from the laceration? Is it a piece of hay up under the lid? Guess I'll probably be finding that out tomorrow. Sigh. The first visit (farm call + emergency call + exam charge + shot) was $190. Good thing that Huey's checking account is reasonably flush right now...

Barn owner put arnica on it the night it happened (got the vet out next day).

I feel my spare time for the next several days just draining right away. I hope this resolves quickly, because I have to leave on Thursday for a business trip, and an extension of that trip to Steamboat.
 

Serafina

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Summoned the vet out again yesterday. He looked at Huey's eye and said "HOLY SMOKES!!!!!!" so it really was that bad. Pumped him with some sedatives, gave him a nerve block so he could inspect the eye properly, but found that it was so swollen he could only see about 20% of it. He had looked at most of it before and it was fine, though. It was swollen up so that the little dent there by his brow-bone was gone, and we couldn't see any of his skull structure anywhere around the eye. And ooky, maximally ooky.

The vet's first thought jived with mine, which is that he'd gotten an infection via that little laceration on his eyelid. Vet thinks it's cellulitis. Fortunately, while he was out at the farm he was able to get in a phone consult with the equine ophthalmologist, who also thought it very likely that it's cellulitis. So Huey got a big shot of antibiotics in the butt yesterday afternoon. I have to go down to the clinic on Monday and pick up a prescription for SMZ, which he'll get for a week. And I put his fly mask on to keep any more crap from the barn getting in all that ook.

Went by this evening to dose him up with banamine, and saw that the swelling has started to go down. Can see that little dent above his eye again, even if the eye itself is still swollen shut.

Poor baby. At least it looks like we're headed in the right direction, though.
 

contesstant

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Soooo thankful it was not a scratched cornea or something else! Poor guy!
 

litterbug

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
It's so good to hear that he had such dramatic improvement after the big shot of antibiotic. Hopefully he'll be better in no time.
 

Ashleigh Lawrence

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Blimey! My neighbour's horse had cellutitis in both hind legs, it's a horrible thing! Hopefully Huey is now on the road to recovery though....
 

Serafina

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
When I checked on him this morning, he was able to get his eye open enough for there to be an actual "lid". There's only been a big fat roll for a while. Picked up a massive amount of SMZ from the vet, so hopefully, that will keep him on the road to recovery!!
 

Serafina

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Didn't see him today, but yesterday, he was avoiding his antibiotic. He gets 15 pills dissolved in water and mixed in to his grain. I tasted a piece of his grain and it is NASTY. I can't blame him for not wanting to eat it. I mixed in some apple sauce, and even that wasn't enough to stir his interest. Barn owner was going to keep him in his stall until he got 1) bored and 2) hungry and decided to eat the doctored grain. I'll see him in the morning before we leave for COLORADO W00T!!!! - hoping that his eye is continuing to clear up and that he's resigned himself to eating the stuff.

Still concerned that Something Might Happen while we're gone, so I left my credit-card number and info on file with the vet, and told the barn owner that if she thinks it might even possibly be appropriate to have him out, just do it. Don't think twice, just call. I hate leaving while this thing hasn't 100% cleared up, but lord knows, he could just as easily have done it while I was gone. I either have to take him with me, or trust my barn owner and the vet to see to things. They both have WAY more experience than I do, so he's actually better off in their hands than he is in mine. :rolleyes: Mostly what I do is fuss over him.
 

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