So last week Smoky was scheduled to have surgery at NC State on Tuesday.
We took him in on Monday and they did a lameness exam, as well as radiographs and ultrasounds.
He trailered well and walked into the hospital like a champ. Started chomping hay right away and was gentleman for the most part. He got a little pushy and grumpy during the lameness exam.
The vets found slight lameness in the back right ankle, where the fractured sesamoid is, and in the front right pastern, which is sort of new but old. When I moved Smoky to Ride The Sky and my vet, Chelsey, came out to take a look at him she noticed the right front pastern had some thickening and stiffness. But she wasn't extremely concerned about. It never came up in the PPE I had done by Bannon Woods in March, and I noticed nothing until around the time I moved him to RTS.
When I moved him, we had a traumatic trailer experience. We could NOT get him to back out of the tiny two-horse straight load trailer and he nearly fell and tripped a bunch of times. Eventually we had to back the trailer up to a platform that he could back out onto. It took 2 hours.
In March 2016, West Point Thoroughbreds shared a video of Smoky (TB Salute) and mentioned a tendon sheath issue in the right front ankle. So, I am assuming he somehow aggravated this old injury that was probably not properly rested at the time, and the vet suggested he was likely injected with steroids to mitigate the problem. Super.
So, the rads and ultrasounds!
The radiograph on the right hind showed dramatic improvement and healing in the sesamoid. Waiting to get the rads because it's seriously impressive. Dr. Redding said, "Whatever you've been doing has been obviously helpful, keep doing that."
But, he was more concerned with the pastern, and ultrasound revealed a pretty significantly damaged right branch of the distal suspensory that has some blood flow (ie inflammation or attempts at healing, we want the latter).
So, the vet says there's nothing we can really do right now except see how the body continues its attempts at healing. His prescription is daily hand-walking increasing by 5 minutes each week, for about a month, and if he stays the way he is or improves, we move to under-tack walking with the same progression. At any point, if he seems worse, we start over with rest and short walking times.
Hoping and praying things continue to get better from here!
We took him in on Monday and they did a lameness exam, as well as radiographs and ultrasounds.
He trailered well and walked into the hospital like a champ. Started chomping hay right away and was gentleman for the most part. He got a little pushy and grumpy during the lameness exam.
The vets found slight lameness in the back right ankle, where the fractured sesamoid is, and in the front right pastern, which is sort of new but old. When I moved Smoky to Ride The Sky and my vet, Chelsey, came out to take a look at him she noticed the right front pastern had some thickening and stiffness. But she wasn't extremely concerned about. It never came up in the PPE I had done by Bannon Woods in March, and I noticed nothing until around the time I moved him to RTS.
When I moved him, we had a traumatic trailer experience. We could NOT get him to back out of the tiny two-horse straight load trailer and he nearly fell and tripped a bunch of times. Eventually we had to back the trailer up to a platform that he could back out onto. It took 2 hours.
In March 2016, West Point Thoroughbreds shared a video of Smoky (TB Salute) and mentioned a tendon sheath issue in the right front ankle. So, I am assuming he somehow aggravated this old injury that was probably not properly rested at the time, and the vet suggested he was likely injected with steroids to mitigate the problem. Super.
So, the rads and ultrasounds!
The radiograph on the right hind showed dramatic improvement and healing in the sesamoid. Waiting to get the rads because it's seriously impressive. Dr. Redding said, "Whatever you've been doing has been obviously helpful, keep doing that."
But, he was more concerned with the pastern, and ultrasound revealed a pretty significantly damaged right branch of the distal suspensory that has some blood flow (ie inflammation or attempts at healing, we want the latter).
So, the vet says there's nothing we can really do right now except see how the body continues its attempts at healing. His prescription is daily hand-walking increasing by 5 minutes each week, for about a month, and if he stays the way he is or improves, we move to under-tack walking with the same progression. At any point, if he seems worse, we start over with rest and short walking times.
Hoping and praying things continue to get better from here!
