Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Bugs' Vet Visit

Today was Bugs' vet visit about his lameness issue. It didn't go quite as planned.

#1-He wasn't lame anymore.

Beats the heck out of me. That horse has been noticeably lame for 3 months now. He was 3 legged lame for 2 weeks after the chiro started working on him. I had to turn him out for the weekend after the chiro worked on him the 2nd time. Got home and went to get him out of the pasture on Sunday and Huh!...He was 90% better. Barely a hitch in his giddy-up.

#2-I had scheduled the vet visit after the farrier appointment so that Bugs' feet would be right for the lameness exam.

Unfortunately, either I entered the dates wrong in my phone or they were wrote down on the schedule wrong. The farrier had other people scheduled, so all he could do for me was pull Bugs' shoes and trim his feet real quick.

Wished I would have just left the shoes on because Bugs was so tender on his front feet that the vet was unable to see anything but that. The lameness exam was basically a flop.

The vet did determine that there is no actual soft tissue damage anywhere in the hind leg and while trying to do flex tests he commented several times on how stiff Bugs' spine and hips were.

We went over a few options and settled on a shot of Legend and started him on the generic Adequan series. The vet said to start riding Bugs again and we would go from there. If he came up 3-legged lame again, he would try his best to fit him in asap.

I did remember to ask the vet about Robaxin and he said if I needed any for Moon...Or Bugs to let him know and he would give it to me. After reading up on it after the Anonymous commenter mentioned it, I am thinking that if the Adequan and Legend don't get his joints to feeling better, it might not be a bad option to use on Bugs to get his muscles to relax and help his circulation. I can use it on Moon too because it is a legal drug, but I have pretty much determined Moon's muscles soreness issues revolve around magnesium. Since putting him back on Frosty's IR supplement, Moon is back to normal. I put Bugs on the supplement as well, but haven't noticed that his muscle soreness has improved. By rights, Bugs shouldn't have sore muscles...he hasn't been working. So still not a 100% sure what is going on with him, but we have ruled out injury. So it's back to work for him.

Right after I got done at the vet, the farrier called and said he could get Bugs in to get his shoes on again and although it was too late for the vet visit, I went ahead and took him back over to have that done.

Well, at least I got 2 horses back on track. Next on the list is the big bay and the thoroughbred. I guess I really did need to take a little time off to get caught up around here. :-)

3 comments:

Sherry Sikstrom said...

so much going on , when do you sleep?

Cut-N-Jump said...

Sucks that it didn't all go as planned. Then at least you may have a better idea of the root issue. From there you know what to do or at least a game plan. Let's hope he turns around soon. How is it going with the big bay horse? Is he coming around?

Crystal said...

Ugh I hate when the vet comes and there is nothing wrong! But good news if he can go back to work.