Hole in Cornea

[Srhorselady]

This story is about both my injury and Cowboys (24 year old buckskin quarter horse) hole in his cornea. We could both use jingles. Starting with me. Last June my right wrist started to ache and complain when twisting or lifting anything heavy. I’m right handed, of course. I ignored it assuming it would improve in a few days. In July I gave up and went to my GP doctor who said tendinitis or bursitis and sent me to physical therapy. After 6 weeks the PT and I agreed it wasn’t improving and in fact was getting worse, so back to my GP. He said imaging and a specialist. X-rays led to a diagnosis of displaced bones and a recommendation for an MRI. The MRI showed displaced bones with lax or damaged ligaments, a torn tendon, torn cartilage, and arthritis in the joint. Wonderful. The specialist gave me an overview starting with conservative and ending with surgery. One major issue was he couldn’t tell which of the problems was causing the pain. A conservative start meant 3 weeks in a cast. Not pleasant. I was continuing to do most of my horse chores for my 4 horses who live at home. I do have barn help five mornings and occasionally in the evenings. Sue started to help more as I was moving slower and having problems with some things. Halter buckles and any horse jerks hurt a LOT. Brushing began to be a left handed chore etc. However on weekends it was just me. After the splint non success we went on to specialist PT plus Vetrolin (human Surpass), CBD ointment, and Castor oil poultices plus ultrasound and heat therapy. All oh which helped for short periods. Then Cowboy, who always has clean eyes had a runny eye with bedding in it one morning. I cleaned it out and didn’t think anything more about it until he was squinting and the eye was mildly swollen (with more bedding in it) two days later. Eyes are scary so I called my vet! Well the strip testing came up with a green dot. Sigh. Three different meds to be put in his eye three times a day for a week until recheck. Although Cowboy is a fairly tolerant horse NO horse is going to remain totally quiet for all that for a week. And me not being able to tolerate much with my right hand. Luckily Sue agreed to do the morning and evening meds leaving me only the one med at mid day. Unluckily Sue was leaving town to work a horse show for 3 days of this week. Meanwhile I was back to my specialist and this time I chose to do wrist joint injections with steroids hoping it would relieve the pain enough to doCowboys meds while Sue is gone. That is where I’m at now. Surgery is probably in my future if the injections are not successful. (The injections have a 50% chance but do not usually last). Unfortunately surgery has a 3 month recovery period. I’m not sure what I will do then. Meanwhile I just hope to get Cowboy through this to his Vet recheck!

[Srhorselady]

Sorry….Volta ran. Not vetrlin

[exvet]

Sending healing vibes to you both. If you need additional help, let me know. There's a possibility my DIL who lives near you might be able to help out a little. She loves horses and helps me with some coverage when I'm out-of-town.

[Srhorselady]

Thanks Exvet! I’m feeling more hopeful this am. The pain isn’t totally gone (the doctor warned it might not be) but it is much better than it has been in months. I’m much more confident now that I’ll be able to handle medicating Cowboy. This eye problem is so worrisome especially since after a couple of years of being stable his Cushings is trending to be worse. The affect on his immune system while fighting this eye problem…. Cowboy is relatively healthy and sound at the walk but has lots of arthritic issues due to hard usage as a two/three year old. His idiotic owner was roping off him as a baby! He’s a very tolerant fellow.

[PaulaO]

Jingles to you both! Miss A is telling Cowboy to be good about his eye meds. And I’m telling you not to be heroic and please consider surgery. You are already on the DL, so a few weeks of recuperating won’t be that much harder.

[texsuze]

Jingles for you both. I feel your pain re: equine eye ointments requiring multiple applications during the day. Been there, done that more than once! Ointments will be very helpful, though. Try putting the tubes down in a pocket of your britches for a few minutes to warm up the goop before putting into Cowboy's eye. I've done that with all meds and I think it helps.

Are you seeing a sports medicine orthopedic surgeon, or, an orthopedic hand specialist? Just wondering... Hoping you get some relief in the meantime!

[Srhorselady]

I’m seeing an orthopedic hand,arm,shoulder surgeon with 40 years experience. He’s very matter of fact ie blunt. I think that’s good. He can’t tell me exactly what the surgery would be until he gets inside. He says it depends on the quality of the tissue. Sometimes it’s very thin and fragile, others it’s good. He’d probably be working on the ligaments and cleaning up tendon, cartiledge, and arthritis issues. However, since I elected the immediate pain relief in order to deal with my Cowboy situation the surgery option is off the table for at least 3 months. The steroid injection would affect the healing. That’s okay. I’m not prepared to do it now anyway. Meanwhile my vet just texted to find out how Cowboy is doing. No major improvement, but he’s not worse. However, when I told my vet he was tolerating the medicating quite well she said that was a very good sign. She said if it was worse he would not be tolerating the medicines that well. I must admit I’m fascinated by the strip testing/green dot! They didn’t have that technology the last time I had an eye problem.

[Kyras_Mom]

Healing jingles for both of you.

Susan

[Quelah]

FFS. It makes me crazy when people are told to start PT without a definitive diagnosis of the injury.

Jingles for you both. I agree with texsuze about putting the ointment in your pocket this time of year. If it's body temp it's less noticeable when applied, aside from the fact that you're STILL TRYING TO DO SOMETHING TO HIS EYE. Ah horses, but my husband is just as bad when he's had to have drops in his eye. I've threatened a twitch before. I swam when I was younger and my eyes are where my spring time allergies get me so I sometimes do eyedrops with the frequency and enthusiasm that truckers drink coffee.

[Srhorselady]

I wanted to give you all an update! Cowboys recheck came up good! No green dot! This week I’ve been slowly tapering off his eye meds. He was actually pretty good throughout the process. My wonderful friend Alice came over Sat and Sun and did the am meds so I only had mid day and evening. Sue is back to help on week days. Tomorrow morning he gets his last dose. My wrist hung in there. I want to wish you all a Happy Holidays and thank you for the well wishes. It’s been an expensive Christmas this year. Cowboy and now $500 in vet bills for the dog, but it turned out to be nothing too serious. Then the dishwasher flooded the kitchen. New one installed today. $200 to ship gifts to the east coast. Yikes! I’m looking forward to the New Year. . All in all it’s good.

[exvet]

So glad Cowboy's recheck had good news. As they say when it rains it pours. Sounds like you're due for a bit of a reprieve

[khall]

Glad all turned out well! My boarder juliet had eye issues this year. Uveitis where she ended up blind in that eye. We had ages of eye meds and she was so good about them. But I was not dealing with wrist issues!! Glad the injections helped your wrist