White Line Disease

[Cornish Lass]

Our Shetland pony has been lame on one foreleg for the last 10 days. Vet initially thought possible laminitis, and prescribed anti-inflamatory and restricted grazing, but having improved at first, she has relapsed today.

On vets suggestion I called out Farrier today, who has now diagnosed White Line Disease. He has suggested I try Anti-Bac hoof dressing. My vet has never heard of this treatment and has suggested I continue to poultice the foot until any pus which may be present breaks through, as he feels an anti-bacterial treatment will deaden the natural pus clearing functions and not solve the problem. I have spoken to another local vet who stocks the Anti-Bac and has said it is appropriate treatment for WLD.

Has anyone treated White Line in their horses (I think this is also known as "seedy toe")? What did you do? I am reluctant to go against my vets advice as he is already treating our pony, but my Farrier is "of the old school" who has used the Anti-bac successfully before.

Any advice on WLD would be appreciated.

Thanks, Lesley

[galadriel]

Hmmm... I am not entirely sure on this (it's been a couple of years) but this is what I think I know :)

The "white line" is between the hoof itself and the hoof wall, and when infection gets in there it can spread all the way around the hoof, eating the white line as it goes. If you stop it, you can then treat just the abcess caused by the infection/separation of the hoof wall. Stopping it can be as simple as cutting out the infected part if it's close enough to the surface. It can also be drawing the pus out so it erupts, and you can treat the drain/abcess directly with iodine or other topical agent.

If you've got no active infection left, just pus to drain, why would you need to use an antibacterial agent? Just an antiseptic to keep it clean and the poultice to keep draining the pus till it's all clean (if they weren't able to cu the whole area away). If you've still got infection, you definitely need to kill it and an antibacterial agent makes sense.

With abcesses (I've had all sorts of experience now) I have had to go both routes: initially just using the poultice to draw the pus out, but one abcess went on for more than a month and eventually my vet had to attack it with oral antibiotics. However, I like to follow the advice of my vet, who is the one who knows *my* horse, my horse's history, and who has actually seen the horse in question. Farriers and other vets may offer advice, but where they conflict I will usually follow the advice of the vet. (I have on occasion received different advice from the farrier which I ran past the vet--if the vet thought it was a good idea, I tried it--otherwise I dropped it.)

In any case, white line disease being a kind of abcess (infection inside the hoof, which needs to break to the surface and drain), the simplest and most direct treatment is just to poultice it, soak it in Epsom salts or Betadine, and try to get the abcess to erupt. Unless YOUR vet recommends more than that, you can probably stick to it :)

[Wally]

The way I have been taught to treat white line disease is to pare all the black diseased hoof away, in some cases it can look really radical. You have to expose the bacteria to air, it is an anearobic bacteria it cannot survive being exposed to oxygen.

Then once you have removed the infected horn you may need to support the hoof with some sort of shoe which has clips either side of the hole you have created, as this is a weakness in the hoof wall. When you have done this use 50/50 bleach and water to scrub the hoof with this will make sure you have killed the bacteria.

I have treated my Haffy like this when he was about 28 , he got a dose of white line disease.......this is how I learned to make clips on shoes! I had to as I needed to make special shoes to support the pared hoof.

[Mehitabel]

one of our school horses has just been diagnosed with this, os i have been doing research on it lately online.
with roma, we and her owner are currently treating it by scrubbing the visible bit of the white line, on the sole, with a stronger version of keratex, and blue spraying it, to harden the spongy stuff that will be exposed when the hoof wall gets cut away next week. she had x-rays, which show where is going to have to go.
it is like seedy toe, but as i understand it, a much more severe version of it.
roma's has been caused by previous laminitis - the pedal bone rotating has pulled the white line apart and allowed infection in - combined with 'cytek' shoeing by someone who was very bad at his job.
it is further complicated by her being an ardennes, and so much heavier than a normal horse.
pretty much as wally has described, really, treatment-wise.