The Mysterious Illness...
Here is the story of the illness that lasted nearly 2 ½ months. It was the beginning of August, what would be the last month to ride seriously before school started. It was a week and a half in, Freddy's personality took a major change. He went for ready to go, to super lazy and sluggish. He also became noticeably depressed. Nothing had changed in his environment. He also had been getting a swelling under his chin (in the chin groove). This swelling looked like you had taken a toilet paper tube and stuck it behind his chin. The swelling would appear for a few days then go for a few.I talked to vet and she said to give him some bute to see if that would take away the inflammation. The bute had no affect, so we stopped giving it to him. Then the swelling went for a few days, but it returned.The vet decided she wanted to come and check out my horse, as the depression was getting better. This is a horse that normally will go with out much asking, but had become the horse that even a whip/severe nudging wouldn't get him to do more than a walk. The day before the vet was to come out, Freddy became horribly lame. It was at the pint where he couldn't walk without nearly falling over. The next morning the vet arrived, and conveniently enough the swelling under his chin had reappeared. This made it possible for the vet to really see what was going on with it. We still don't know the cause of the swelling. She had said the name of it, but I remember her saying was it is always found on the legs or belly. Why it was showing up under his chin was not clear. She looked at his foot (right front), nothing seemed to be showing on the surface. His digital pulse was very high compared to the other foot. She dug around in his foot without producing anything. She though that it must be an abscess. From there we poulticed and wrapped it. We also took 3 tubes of blood to see if that would show us anything. With out the blood results she suspected luekemia,or organ failure. Also with his foot she ruled out founder, navicular and stuff like that. The blood samples came back in the low end of normal. He did have 15x the normal amount of a certain cell. As of a week of poulticing his foot nothing had come out, and there was very little improvement. We left his foot unwrapped, and took more blood. This time we checked for coggins and all that stuff. Everything came back normal, and had a negative coggins. This all happened toward the end of August. The swelling returned once again, we put him on bute to see what would happen, nothing like usual. He was also showing little improvement, so the vet wanted to come out and look at his foot again. This time while she was out, she decided to inject his coffin joint with anit-biotics and there was inflammation there. We also locked him up in the round pen to help keep off it. He was in there for 3 days. After the three days, he was sounder, so he was allowed out to the pasture. A few days later he was sound, so I lunged him. The next day I rode him. He was sound for three days then once again he went lame. So once again we were back to square one. We then decided to go ahead and take x-rays of his leg. She told me it was 99% a fracture. Also the swelling came back, but this time on his upper lip. It looked like you cut a tennis ball in half and stuck it to both side of his noes and the front of it. The x-rays showed nothing, but still he was lame. We decided to lock him in a stall for a while. It was hard to find a stall, as I wasn't able to find one for cheap. I ended up borrowing metal panels from a friend. And made a temporary 10' x20'. He was to be there in a week with not turn out.At the end of the week he was much improved but not at a 100%. So we put him in there for another week. During the whole time of this (August -mid of sept) he had lost a lot of weight. He went from under weight to severely under weight. At then end of the second week he was totally sound. And has been ever since, even with hard riding. We still don't know the cause but will most likely never will.
The first picture is what Freddy looked like before he got sick.
The next 2 are what he looked like when he was sick. The first one is from the side.
This picture doesn't show his weight loss as good but it gives you an idea.
**** to help pay for Freddy's vet bill, I am making tail bags. They are 5.50 including shipping. They are a single tube and can have a velcro top or a tie top. Can be made to a certain length if standard size is too small. If interested email sable_rocks@hotmail.com and put tail bags as the tittle.
