223. An anxious wait...

Today Spice was thankfully a lot more comfortable and i was able to turn her out. However, whilst she 'appears' to be better i am under no illusions that we aren't still dealing with a very serious problem. Unfortunately the vet didn't have the right equipment to x ray her today so i am still left wondering whether she has an infection in the bone or whether she has bone fragments floating about (both of which are potential possibilities).

If there are bone fragments she will almost definitely require surgery and if there aren't it is likely that the infection has gone to the bone and she will need a strong course of antibiotics for at least 2 months. However, it is notoriously difficult to treat bone infections due to very few antibiotics actually being able to penetrate the bone and therefore be effective so even looking at the more optimistic possibility doesn't look great. The worst case scenario would be that due to infection some of the bone itself has actually died in which case i fear we will be fighting a losing battle...

At the moment she is being injected with penicilin and strep which is particularly effective in killing Staphylococcus spp - a bacteria most commonly found in bone infections but results of the swab which should come back next monday will give us a more accurate result of whether or not we are using the right antibiotic although i have read that the only antibiotics that are able to effectively penetrate the bone are baytrill and chloramphenical...