Foot Footage

Ha ha, I crack myself up; foot footage.  That's as good as a movement movie. I wish I had thought to take a video clip when Speedy was really lame, because after watching this clip, you're going to wonder why all of the fuss. I am beginning to wonder myself.

The whole thing started four weeks ago with an overnight lameness. He was sound when he went to bed, and dead lame the next morning. After a chiropractic visit, he was again sound by Friday only to turn up dead lame again on the weekend. We went through that cycle for three weeks: he would get sound by Friday, only to be dead lame by Saturday. We took him to the vet last Monday where he presented quite lame. By Tuesday he looked nearly sound, and by this weekend, he looked like this.

I've already shared the vet's diagnosis: abscess, bone bruise, or damage to the collateral ligament. It has always felt like an abscess to me, but there is no tell-tale "blowout" to prove it. Until I know otherwise, I am treating it like a collateral ligament injury.

Since returning from the vet, he hasn't shown that horrible degree of lameness that the vet saw. To me, he looks a little bit sore on the right front, but nothing like it was. And so far, he hasn't returned to the pattern of repeated lameness by the weekend, which was such a baffling phenomenon. What would cause a horse to cycle through a lameness so predictably? 
  
I've closed off his stall so that he can't access his "outside" paddock, which has limited how much he can move around. I've also been hand walking him daily, which I was doing even before the vet visit. He is also on a tablespoon of aspirin daily.

I can't imagine that those few changes are enough to help a collateral ligament settle down. If I am wrong please let me know! I just hate wasting 6 months of time if this really has nothing to do with a soft tissue injury. I am not in a rush if it is, but I sure wish I had a cheaper way to know for sure (the $2800 MRI was just too expensive for this girl).

Until something confirms an abscess, Speedy is on a diet of daily hand walking (5 weeks to go), aspirin (3 weeks to go), and lots of scratches in all the right places (no end date).