Which, like, I could do without, but it did make me laugh.
I wanted to give a quick update on how Bobby is doing and how the consult with OF went mostly so I have everything in one place to go back to.
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team farrier trying to make some magic happen |
Bobby was doing worse this morning. Without even seeing him go I could tell he was not feeling okay. He's the perkiest creature on the planet, and this morning he just looked flat out despondent. I turned him out in the indoor to see if he wanted to walk around a bit, but he just rolled and stood there staring at me until I put him back in his stall while we waited for Farrier to arrive.
OF poked and prodded first thing then took a look through all the rads we did last month while Farrier and I filled him in on all the details of the last six months.
"What did Vet say about it?"
"She told me to send him to Cornell because she was out of ideas."
"And what did Cornell say?"
"They gave me a bunch of steroids because they didn't know what to do with it."
"Have you tried--"
"WE HAVE TRIED ALL THE THINGS IN THE LAND EXCEPT STEROIDS, ASK ME AND I HAVE TRIED IT."
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favorite activity: stalking kitties |
Basically what everything came down to is that OF felt strongly that Bobby is pre-laminitic in both front feet. Probably the acute lameness in the RF in that area I was suspicious of is an abscess resultant of the oncoming founder as Farrier suspected.
He thought of the bulging coronary band as an event line, saying that it's resultant of trauma and if it was viable tissue still it would be weeping blood and/or pus, but since it's not it's unlikely any vascular activity is getting to it. Likely the swelling was from a gas pocket and he could still try to brew up an abscess in it. He thought that underneath it Bobby could be growing a new coronary band, and once the bulging mess on top gets ahold of itself better, Farrier could start rasping it off and we'd see something significantly healthier underneath. Farrier seemed dubious about this theory, but I thought it was pretty interesting. Not sure I believe it, but interesting nonetheless.
He wanted Bobby to trim down significantly as he felt he was carrying way too much weight and not enough muscle. I was slightly perplexed by this as no one has ever accused Bobby of being fat--in fact they're usually asking what I feed him to imply it's not enough. And, you know, he's a pretty solid as shit Second level horse. He hasn't been worked like a beast lately, but he's not some flabby, floppy retiree.
The idea was basically that less weight on his feet is better, and obviously no sugar so we cut his grain completely.
And no snacks. Because this farrier is a SAVAGE. #wouldratherhavecancerthannosnacks
Multiple attempts of setting Bobby up with various pads and glue-ons were highly unsuccessful as he couldn't get comfortable with anything. He needs sole support for the founder, but he doesn't like any sole pressure because of the navicular. They finally just taped his giant pad back on and set the ground rules:
- No more grain.
- No more alfalfa.
- No more snacks.
- No more grass.
- No more turnout unless it's in the sand indoor, and only if he wants to leave his stall. No forcing him into turnout.
- Check pulses and temperature daily. Full blown founder is the biggest threat right now, but there's still the threat of detachment.
Overall he thought that the internal structures of his foot looked good. In fact, everything below the coronary band looked pretty okay. He thought Farrier was doing a good job working with what we have. Hopefully the diet change halts laminitis at X and they'll be able to reassess to see what type of shoeing and padding he needs. He felt confident there was more to be done to get him back to work for awhile longer yet.
I don't know if I feel any better because I still feel very doubtful this is something we can fix without dragging my horse through months of pain which I absolutely won't do, but I do like having a solid plan of attack. Regular Vet is on vacation all next week, but the vet office assured me she'd kept everyone up to date on Bobby's medical marvels so I'm going to have a different vet out on Monday so that they have a baseline in case things go south in a hurry.
Very importantly in the meantime, what's everyone's favorite sugar-free snacks? Bobby cannot go without snacks, dudes. Unacceptable.