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EQUINE MATTERS
A not so quiet Christmas Eve!
Gavinder Panesar BVSc MrCVS,
608 Farm and Equine
Christmas Eve arrived and, sure enough, the
opposite soon proved to be the case. Five
minutes into being on call and the phone rang:
’Hi Gav, I’ve got a yearling with a bit
of a wound. Can you come and stitch it
?
’
Reading between the lines, the undertone of the
conversation suggested this ‘bit of a wound’
might actually be a bit more of a gaping hole!
On my arrival I was presented with a yearling
in a barn that had never really been caught, or
even left the barn. After a little persuasion, the
youngster was caught and sedated to reveal a
sizeable wound on the outside of its right fore
cannon
(figure 1)
. Amazingly this yearling was
sound and fortunately had managed to miss
every vital structure in its leg!
My initial dilemma was that the leg was
currently so swollen that the wound may not be
viable to be sutured closed. Being a bit of a
perfectionist, I wanted to do everything I could
to reduce both the amount of scarring and the
healing time if at all possible. After some
deliberation I decided to stitch it, but needed
to reduce the tension in the skin surrounding
the wound so that it could heal.
My solution to this problem was tension-
relieving sutures
(figure 2)
. Two hours later it
was then bandaged securely. This was
particularly important since the yearling had
a bit of a reputation of being mischievous and
there was a concern that he might manage to
remove the bandage and expose the wound.
A few days later the swelling had subsided
and a ’normal’ looking leg was left.
Unfortunately since the swelling had reduced,
the stitches were no longer doing their job and
there was no tension on the wound
(figure 3)
. I
re-stitched the wound in the hope that it would
hold together
(figure 4)
.
Unfortunately, a few days later, the sutures had
not held together as I would have liked and
the wound had broken down
(figure 5)
. I had
no choice but to remove the stitches and to
reassess my plan to get this yearling back on
track
(figure 6)
. I decided to allow the wound
to heal by ‘secondary intention’ with the
assistance of Manuka honey treatment. Over
the years I have found Manuka honey is a
very good product for helping wounds to heal
when they cannot be stitched. The high sugar
content prevents bacteria growing and allows
time for the wound to heal while reducing the
chance of infection. This worked, and even
after the first Manuka honey bandage, things
were looking up
(figure 7)
.
After two or three further Manuka honey
bandage changes, things were going from
strength to strength and I finally decided to
leave the wound unbandaged
(figure 8)
.
Six weeks later the wound is nearly completely
healed and the yearling is none the wiser, now
running around in a field!
A nice (Christmas) Happy Ending!
H A P P Y E ND I NG S
A vet’s favourite time of year – sorting out the Christmas Rota! I
landed Christmas Eve, a Saturday, however with people doing last
minute Christmas shopping, surely this would be a quiet day
?
Figure 5.
Figure 6.
Figure 7.
Figure 8.
Veterinary Surgeon
Gavinder Panesar
XLVets Equine practice
608 Farm and Equine
Figure 1.
Figure 2.
Figure 3.
Figure 4.