Saturday, August 21, 2010

The vets say I'm doing all the right things, just keep it up. Bella is happy and chipper in her padded Easyboots.

I don't know if I speculated too broadly before, but I want to clarify that I have NO reason to think she had a big worm load. I saw no evidence of it before or after I wormed her. I just thought that if she did, the toxins released could have made matters worse. I don't like the idea of a daily wormer in most circumstances. But I do worm regularly, and rotate the chemicals I use. I am considering looking for a different option for wormer for Bella now that this has happened. I remember that the Equine Cushings website had listed something about wormer being bad for horses with metabolic problems. I'll have to look that up again since I don't remember the details or the specific wormers mentioned.

I had started to panic thinking the wormer was going to kill her, but after talking to two vets I think it may have just been the thing to set off a laminitis attack that was already started and just wasn't visible yet. The only strange thing I can't explain are the lumps on her jaws. They got worse and some are open and oozing. The vet said Benadryl was a good idea.

Anywhoo... That's the up to the minute info. I'm heading out to see how she's doing.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The open oozing lumps on her jaws could be strangles (?). If they are, or an abscess of some other type, an infection like that could tip her over into laminitis if she were already on the edge.

Andrea -Mustang Saga said...

The vet brought up cheat grass but I don't think they could be abscesses of any kind. There are too many of them and they're too small. They came on fast, in just a couple hours. They're just on the outside part of the jaw, the flat part of the side of the face, worse toward the bottom but going all the way up to just under the eye, on both sides. I'm pretty sure they're hives. The Benadryl helped for a while then seemed to wear off. I gave her another dose tonight.

Anonymous said...

Sound exactly like hives - we've got some horses at our barn who have terrible reactions to some of the fly and mosquito bites.