Another Injury

Last week when we went to Cambria for two days - TWO DAYS!, Izzy cut open his pastern pretty good. I looked everywhere to see what he cut it on, but I couldn't find any obvious culprit. On Wednesday, I cleaned it up and sprayed it with AluShield. On Thursday, it was obvious that wasn't going to cut it, so I smeared it with Biozide Gel and wrapped it with a bit of Elastikon. I didn't think that it would hold, and I was right. By Friday, the wound didn't look any worse, so I repeated the Biozide gel, but I beefed up the wrap with duct tape.

That's Biozide Gel not blood.

The wound started off looking bad, and then it got ... different. Not necessarily worse, but not actually better. By Saturday, I suspected it was epithelializing too quickly which is how you get proud flesh, so I soaked a hydrophilic foam pad with my vet's version of White Lotion and wrapped it again. White lotion serves as a bit of an irritant which slows the epithelialization process. The new skin cells need time to grow across the wound. When a wound epithelializes too quickly, the new skin cells mound upwards rather than across the wound. Those mounded skin cells are called proud flesh and must be debrided, or cut away.

The med kit I'm using for this wound.

If you've been following this blog for any length of time, you'll know that bandaging is my specialty. If you haven't read about Izzy's Leg, click here, but go back to the beginning. With that said, I haven't called the vet yet even though it's an ugly wound. I already know what he'll tell me to do, and I am doing it. The good thing is that the wound is closing up.

Rap Last (to prevent chewing), white lotion, Biozide Gel, hydrophilic foam pad and container (for soaking pad), vet wrap, duct tape, scissors, soft brush, clean towels, hoof pick, brown gauze (not pictured).

Each day I clean the wound, if needed. I soak the hydrophilic foam pad with white lotion and then place it over the wound. I hold the pad firmly in place with brown gauze. I wrap that tightly with vet wrap and then secure it all with duct tape.

Yesterday's wrap.

While it is still ugly, it is steadily healing. He's not lame on it, and yesterday, he was galloping around before breakfast. My best guess is that it will take about a month to fully heal, but I am hoping it will be healed enough for riding in another week or so. It has already been eight days.

The images below are sort of gross so scroll quickly if you are squeamish.
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July 26

July 28

July 29

July 30

August 1

I'll rewrap it today, and hopefully it will look just a tiny bit better. I've learned that these injuries heal millimeter by millimeter. You just have to be patient and vigilant. Persistence also help.

​Horses.