This time the vets approach was far more 'hands on' which i guess was a comfort if i'm honest as it made me feel that 'something' was actually being done. The hands on approach involved wet poulticing the wound for 3 days to draw out the infection which she did twice. The only problem with this approach was that although it got drew out the infection (the swelling disappeared) keeping the wound moist promoted 'a small mass of proud flesh'. So the vet then applied a dry poultice to the wound for two days with steroid cream in order to try to decrease it which worked to an extent but before applying the next bandage she decided to cut away the remainder 'to allow the wound to heal over' - as for as long as the proud flesh was there it was unlikely to. After applying another bandage with no ointments but a silver gauze for 2 days the wound was looking better than ever even to the point that the vet said i'd be riding her by the weekend. I was so grateful to her as it finally seemed as though we were making progress and that i had a vet on board that knew exactly what they were doing...but unfortunately this feeling didn't last long...
The next bandage was applied in the same fashion but this time the wound was sprayed with some blue substance before being covered with the silver gauze (which was essentially the only difference) but on removing the bandage this time the wound looked no better in fact although i didn't want to admit it to myself it looked worse. :(
The vet was surprised that it hadn't improved but wasn't too concerned and applied yet another bandage to the wound (the same way) but once again on taking it off it looked no better and worse still had produced more 'proud flesh'...at this stage i was beginning to think that not letting the wound dry out naturally and keeping Spices movement so restricted (she was on box rest at this stage due to the weather being too wet to put her out) and having so many lotions and potions applied to the wound may be doing more harm than good...Anyway, the vet cut away the additional proud flesh and yet another bandage was applied however by the time the bandage was due to be taken off it had fallen off by itself and much to my dismay revealed that Spices hock had once again become swollen and warm to touch. There was also pus coming from the wound which to me only spelled out one thing - infection but given that Spice had been on antibiotics every day for the last 14 days and had the wound bandaged throughout how could the wound have become re-infected?
Exhausted by the process i informed the vet (who was on her way) that the wound looked infected and asked her whether it would be worth doing a scan as at this point i wondered whether she might have a bone fragment which would explain the re-occurring infection. However, much to my surprise the vet arrived and said the wound looked fine and that what i thought was pus was actually serum and that the swelling was to be expected due to the fact that it was still healing but i needn't be worried about it being infected.
Whilst part of me really wanted to believe her in my heart i knew she was wrong and that essentially we were back to square one and all the bandaging, time, money and effort had all been for nothing. Anyway the vet re-bandaged Spices wound after scrubbing it with undiluted hibi scrub - (something else which shocked me) as i'd read before how powerful hibi scrub was and that it should never be applied undiluted but wanting to trust that she knew what she was doing i resisted questioning her. I did ask her though about a bone on the inside of Spices leg which seemed to be protruding far more than what it was on the other side which i had only noticed for the first time the day before but she simply said it looked more apparent due to muscle wastage - i didn't buy this either. Anyway, by the morning the new bandage had fallen off and the wound looked worse than ever. (see pictures below)
So at this point i decided that enough was enough... i had tried doing things the conventional way using vets and following what they said to the T but we were just going round in circles so i decided to let nature take over... I didn't touch the wound or try to re-bandage it i simply left it as it was and decided to turn her out - (that was yesterday). This morning she was once again turned out and this afternoon i arrived to find that the globule of blood and tissue that was sticking out of the wound yesterday had completely come off and that the wound was dry and looked to be very near to closing. There was a small drop of yellow serum oozing from the wound but no pus and the swelling had gone down substantially. It's too soon at the minute to say whether my latest course of action will or wont work but i am feeling a lot more optimistic.
My only concern is that stabling her overnight may interfere with the healing process due to lack of blood flow and circulation (which i know is an integral part of natures healing process) but fingers crossed it wont and that the wound will continue to improve. The only thing that is still concerning me is the protruding bone...as i am still uncertain as to what it is and what has caused it.
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