Case
Study - Ribbo |
| This horse had a lameness in his right front
leg that improved each time he was rested in his stall, but just a little
exercise brought
back the limp. When I examined him he was markedly worse when turned to
the right, so I anesthetized the nerve that went to just the outside part
of his foot (a nerve block that lasts for about two hours). Ribbo went
completely sound in about 5 minutes so I knew his pain came from the outside
part of his foot. |
 |
I then concentrated on taking multiple xrays
of the outside parts of his hoof. The radiographs showed he had fractured
the lateral wing of his coffin bone very close to the joint.
I elected to apply fiberglass casts to his
foot and keep him from exercising on it. I changed his cast every
4 or 5 weeks and trimmed his foot each time. |
 |
The casts conformed very well to his foot and gave a
very rigid support as can be seen by the imprint in these removed casts.
I took radiographs every other cast change to evaluate any healing.
The
separation in the coffin bone was not so clear each time so it was healing.
We started casting in March and
removed the last cast
in late July when we could no longer see a fracture line. In his third
cast Ribbo once broke out of his stall and ran around the farm. His owner
said he never took a "bad step", and was sound the days after
his romp. It attests to the strenght of the fiberglass casting material. |
| Two months after the last cast was removed Ribbo was back
in full work getting ready for a Preliminary Horse Trial. |
|
