JUNO IS SOUND!!!
Last post 06-11-2011 9:14 AM by 48northfarm. 11 replies.
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06-07-2011 4:49 PM
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48northfarm
  - Joined on 03-01-2009
- Port Townsend, WA
- Horse of the Year
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Today Claire, my vet and also a good dressage rider, rode Juno for the first time since a few days of quasi-soundness last summer. Claire walked her around the arena on a long rein, asked her for a bit of light contact, and then TROTTED HER FOR ONE CIRCUIT OF THE ARENA! AND JUNO WAS SOUND THE WHOLE TIME!!!
Wow! She hasn't been sound since April of 2009! Apparently, Juno's lameness was due to her infected coffin bone, not a shoulder injury, as we suspected. Juno did everything well: stood for Claire to mount off the block, walked on a loose rein or a long rein, never spooked, never even showed any signs of not being ridden for over a year. Havannah--Juno's babysitter all winter for the post-surgery paddock rest--was screaming most of the time Juno was not at Havannah's side, but Juno was fine. She acted like an old dude ranch horse. Like it was no big deal, head hanging below the point of her shoulders, relaxed..
I can start riding her for 20 mins max at the walk. Claire doesn't need to come over in a few weeks b/c that visit had been meant to be a check of her soundness, and today Juno proved that she is sound. Wahoo! I won't know what to do with her, it's been so long. Now I'll have 3 mares to ride, not just Athene. Pant, pant.
Megan
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"The horse you get off is not the horse you got on. It is your job as a rider to ensure that as often as possible, the change is for the better."
Anonymous |
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That's great news! I didn't realize Juno had been unsound for that long.
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48northfarm
- Joined on 03-01-2009
- Port Townsend, WA
- Horse of the Year
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 Frizzle:So, do you know how the coffin bone got infected?? And how the heck did your vet figure that out if the shoulder injury was suspected to be the cause of her lameness?
Nobody has any idea how it got infected. The first vet was the one that did the first lameness exam on Juno, and he blocked Juno's LF hoof, then knee. When nothing showed up there he said he could do more tests and block her shoulder, but regardless of what he found, the cure would be the same: rest. So, I gave her some rest. After a year of no work, she started to show some improvement so I rode her for a few days at a walk, then she went downhill again.
I figured I'd get a second opinion. I told the 2nd vet what the 1st vet thought, so the 2nd vet decided to block Juno's shoulder. The 2nd vet wasn't able to get any results--Juno moved when he was blocking the shoulder--so another appt was scheduled for later so another try at blocking the shoulder could be done. But while we were waiting for the next appt Juno came down with a really bad abscess in the same hoof, LF. Juno had never gotten an abscess before, so it was very odd. Vet #2 treated the abscess, and we couldn't block the shoulder until the abscess was gone.
Well, the abscess never healed, and had another bad flare up. I mean, really bad, an emergency. I called vet #1--he was closer--and he took x-rays, something he always does if an abscess does not clear up. Later that day, he called with the results of the x-rays: Juno had an infected coffin bone. I asked vet #2 to confirm that diagnosis--that's when I met Claire, who was new at vet #2's clinic--and Claire said surgery was the gold standard treatment for the infection. Antibiotics were tried first, with no luck, so Juno was scheduled for surgery last Dec.
She spent 13 days at the clinic, then came home when her post-surgery treatment was not too complicated for me to do myself. Three months of paddock rest followed, then turnout rest with an Rx boot on. Now she has a pad on her LF and shoes on both of the front.
We sort of happened upon the infection when we were treating the abscess. Lucky move. Another lucky move: Claire was looking at Juno's post-surgery x-rays one night--she was staying in the clinic's apt while waiting to buy a house, and had nothing to do--and thought that some of the infected bone seemed old. That's when she speculated that the infection was the cause of the lameness, not the suspected shoulder injury, and told me to cross my fingers for when we take the bandages off the hoof. If Juno is sound then, Claire's theory would be proven. If Juno were still lame, we'd have to go to square one again in finding the problem. Jeez.
But, Juno is sound! We took a pretty roundabout path to the conclusion, but now we have the answer. It's only taken $7000, so far--ack, ack, gasp, gasp--but we found the answer. Whew.
Megan
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"The horse you get off is not the horse you got on. It is your job as a rider to ensure that as often as possible, the change is for the better."
Anonymous |
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Frizzle
  - Joined on 01-03-2009
- Miami, Florida
- Champion
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WOW, 48, that was quite the ordeal!! Juno is lucky that she has a persistent, caring owner and some really good vets. I'm sure she's relieved to finally have that pain all cleared up.
So, do they think the coffin bone was infected that whole time? And that the abscess was the result of a long-standing infection? Sorry to ask so many questions! It's just interesting/perplexing that it took so long to figure out the problem, despite all of the vet care she received. You should send your story into Equus, they always have a "medical miracle" type of article every month. :-)
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48northfarm
- Joined on 03-01-2009
- Port Townsend, WA
- Horse of the Year
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Frizzle: So, do they think the coffin bone was infected that whole time? And that the abscess was the result of a long-standing infection?
Yes, Claire is of that opinion. I'm not sure what Cary thinks--he's vet #2 in the story--but if the abscess hadn't flared up we would still be looking at the shoulder. The reason why the shoulder was suspect was b/c the hoof and knee blocks showed nothing, which meant the pain was from somewhere above those points, i.e. the shoulder. Claire said that the infected coffin bone would not have shown up when the hoof was blocked: normally, the hoof block would have numbed the pain if the pain had been there, but the pain due to the infection works differently and a block would not numb it. I'm not sure why that is the case, I'll have to ask Claire. Anyway, I learned a lot from this whole ordeal. I can now tactfully and effectively give horses oral medication without fuss, wrap a surgical site with 3 different layers of bandage, work with maggots--yes, maggots were used to clear up the dead flesh in the incision--and put weight back on a horse thinned by surgery/medication stress. It's like I went through one class at vet school: it cost about the same. :)
Megan
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"The horse you get off is not the horse you got on. It is your job as a rider to ensure that as often as possible, the change is for the better."
Anonymous |
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