Cause of and Treatment for Swollen Leg above Stiffle Joint ?

[don yoest]

Swollen leg on a yearling question...

We have a BWF yearling heifer that first appeared to have a dislocated rear leg hanging limply.

Upon corraling and inspecting her it, appeared to be swollen above the stifle joint beyond use.

Vet was not much help ! He lanced the swollen area. Drained about a quart of yellow pus out.

Said it could be a number of things. Use Twin Pen every other day and keep it open so the infection drains.

That was five months ago. Since then a large swollen area on the inside of the leg appeared, opened and healed.

We now have too much soreness for her to walk on that leg again -- we call her Hop Along.

I suspect it may be a thorn, bullet, wire or snakebite...

Any helpful advice sure appreciated -- Thanks !

Don Yoest, MO

 

[Kelly]

Is it an open wound still infected? Did you try a different antibiotic? It could need a drug that it isn't resistant to. That is an awful long time for it to still be infected. Have you tried Icthamol a drawing salve or medicines they use to pull out infection and wrap it to keep the swelling down? This would probably require frequent bandage changes and disinfecting it. I would ask a different vet. Have you kept the flies out because they can lay eggs in any open wounds. Catron works well to spray on wounds to keep the flies from crawling in but has to be applied often.

 

[don yoest]

Kelly:

Thanks for the info...

It has never been an open wound -- other than the pencil size hole the vet made to drain the first swollen area.

We irriagated up into that with Iodine each time we caught her to admninister a shot of Twin Pen.

Also sprayed around it with a fly repellant type wound dressing. However the hole would stay closed with drainage coming out until the swellingt went down and it healed.

That's when a second swollen area about the size of a tennis ball appeared on the inside of her leg at the same height.

A neighbor and I caught her the next day to lance it and give her Penicillen, but it had already burst open and drained by itself.

Niow she has a third swollen area on the front side of her leg at that height. I bought another bottle of Twin Pen and plan to make time tomorrow evening to catch her and drain this third area so she can use her leg again...

But I keep thinking -- there ought to be some thing like a wire or thorn ready to come out... so far we see nothing but swelling and then a yellow discharge upon lancing....

Don Yoest, MO

 

[TheBullLady]

Sounds like whatever is lodged in there is having trouble coming out. I would also suspect a thorn or something similar. I don't know if that's going to ever heal up by itself since it hasn't already. It may be that you're going to need to find a vet with an x-ray machine, if you're interested in trying to fix it for good.