cellulitis

[maren]

this is going to be a bit long, sorry in advance!
my 5 yo tb biggs had some warm swelling on his lower foreleg last friday, but came up sound despite it being a bit sensitive to touch. i cold hosed and sweat wrapped it at night, and it looked 95% better the next day...i figured it was a wrench or a bruise or a bad bug bit. it stayed a bit puffy, however, despite continually wrapping and hosing..finally had the vet out who told me to give him a few days off, but that nothing was wrong really. gave him time off and continued to wrap and hose, but it started getting bigger and more painful. then....
the night before last my friends horse went completely, three legged lame and wouldn't move. he was freezing cold and shivering and his back leg was a bit swollen. the vet was sure that he had broken a bone or blown a tendon. within 5 hours his leg was swollen up to his hip (it just ballooned! i have NEVER seen anything like it before) and the vet was ready to put him down because he was in such agony...until they realized that his temperature was WAY up and that he had an infection, not a broken leg.
the next morning i check on biggs and his leg had overnight swollen up past his knee and his was dead lame. there was oozing bloody serum coming off the front of his cannon bone and the skin around his fetlock was sloughing and peeling off. turns out he had cellulitis too. i guess it is really common right now in new england with the warm weather and all the rain...the horses are out in the mud all the time.
anyhow, bigg's is now on a hefty dose of antibiotics, daily sweating, hosing, and wrapping...and now to my question...
has anyone ever had any experience with cellulitis? how long should i expect his treatment to last (the vet was pretty vague) should i hand walk him to get it moving, or am i just tormenting him and making it worse? poor baby...he's pretty miserable right now!

[Mehitabel]

my old git had it a couple of years ago.

with him, he was hopping lame and leg was fat to just above the hock - no definition at all in hock or fetlock, but not as high up as tthe hip. he had diruetic injections, powerful ABs, hosing and pressure bandaging when it had begun to repsond to treatment. IIRC, and i may not because it was a while ago now, the first AB course was 10 days, then it came up again a day after stopping them, and the second course was another 10 days. the first course was injections for me to do, and the second was powders in feed. during the second course, he was almost sound, and was turned out in a small paddock alone to move it and keep blood flowing, and pressure bandaged overnight when he was out. annoyingly on the last day of this, ther was a storm in the middle of the night, unforecast of course, the bandages got wet and rubbed and he got a pressure sore.

it did damage his periosteum around his fetlock - hopefully yours won't, as it has left it thickened permanently.

we didn't walk copper - at first he was too lame and really miserable, and then the vet said that as he began to feel better it was best to turn him out and let him dictate his exercise.

hope your chap and your friend's horse recover ok. i'd never heard of it before the old git had it, and this is about the fifth time since that i have answered a query like this on a board!

[Bebe]

A livery at my last yard had a mare who got cellulitis as a result of a kick to the shoulder. She ended up in the vet hospital for a couple of weeks on huge doses of ABs, diuretics, etc. She did recover but that shoulder was always weaker and when she received another kick in a similar place a year or so later which turned into another case of cellulitis she never recovered. By this time there was an underlying infection in the bone which surgery didn't fix so she had to be euthanised.

I wouldn't handwalk if he's in pain, would wait until he's comfier in himself for that. As far as treatment goes it all depends but your case sounds pretty bad so I'd imagine it will be a couple of weeks at least.

You can get much milder cases of cellulitis. My mare got a thorn stuck in her leg (above the knee in the muscle) unbeknownst to me. It abcessed and burst but she got cellulitis around the injury site. She's a bit of a drama queen so was hopping lame but a couple of injections from the vet (can't remember what, one was anti-inflammatories and I assume the other was antibiotics) and a weeks worth of powdered antibiotics sorted her out and there's no long term damage thankfully.

[maren]

update! biggsie's leg has gone down a lot (he's getting 60 ccs of antibiotics daily...naxcel and genamicin) as well as 2g of bute, cold hosing and wrapping up past his knee. he's no longer lame on it (maybe a bit stiff in the mornings) and it seems to be improving. he still has a lot of thickening on the back of his leg...his tendons and ligaments are completely obscured (unlike his good leg...they are very clearly defined). i'm hoping that this will improve with time. he's no longer sensitive to me touching and squeezing his leg (previously he would flinch if i even gently laid a finger on his cannon bone). but, the gross skin sloughing is still happening...i think that all the skin was stretched and damaged when his leg blew up, and now it's coming off in flakes and chunks along with the hair...underneath is just bright pink new skin with oozing serum and little pustules...i can pick off the chunks of hair and skin and it doesn't seem to hurt him at all...i don't even know if he can feel it. i'm really concerned about this...i need to call my vet and ask what i can do to protect his new skin and keep it from reinfecting. i also hope he won't end up with permanent hair loss on that leg. anybody seen anything like this before? it's not happening to my friend's horse (who is lots better, btw) but his leg is still really huge and hasn't gone down as well as biggsie's. i think i'm going to stop sweat-wrapping biggs' leg in case the heat/dampness is making the sloughing worse. he'll end his antibiotic course in 6 days...the vet seemed really satisfied with his progress. i miss riding him so much!!!

[cccaz]

I have been using NutraWound for all sorts of injuries and infections. It works amazingly well for Rattlesnake bites! It is 100% Guaranteed. Helps the body hell at a fast rate with minimal scaring.
If you call the company they will give you a treatment plan. If you need the number, PM me because i dont know if the board rules allow me to post that on here.

[Stella2]

My mare had a nasty case of Lymphagitis last year. The symptoms are similar/the same - I'm not clear what the difference is between the two conditions - maybe the infections start in different tissues!!

Anyway, Flora didn't respond to the 1st antibiotic treatment and it was all getting very worrying. Eventually she was put on a double dose of Exanol (strongest equine antibiotic in UK, might go by a different name in the US). We got on top of it, but I did go through a couple of days thinking I might lose her :( She had a re-occurance a couple of months later, but that was brought under control more easily thankfully.

You really do have to walk them even when they are in pain. Standing is the worst possible thing and if you turn them out like that, they don't move because it hurts. Its crucial to keep the circulation going and lots of in hand walking is a crucial part of the treatment!!

Good luck with yours.

Edited to say: When the pain is intense in the first day or so of treatment, they can't be walked.

[maren]

thanks so much everyone for your advice! i called the vet yesterday and she told me that the loss of skin/hair is totally normal in cellulitis, but that i should definitely stop sweating because it can cause heat blisters that will make the scurfing worse. i'm supposed to scrub his leg with betadine and keep it dry and clean (he's gonna LOVE that... :rolleyes: ) she also told me to move him to oral antibiotics after he's finished the IM course (glad i asked her about it...thanks to all of you who mentioned it!! :) ) it looks like he's going to lose a big, diamond shaped patch of skin on the front of his cannon bone...but hopefully i can keep it under control. i will keep posting updates...