I’ve been asked what they’re going to do to work on Shuttle’s bad stifle.
The plan is that they lavage it daily- which means they’ll flush it with something sterile, probably some hep-saline solution, and when it flushes clean that day, they’ll put some very powerful antibiotics directly into the affected joint they just flushed, and they’ll leave them in overnight. They will sedate the horse to do this procedure and every other day, they’ll pull out some joint fluid to see what it looks like. She’ll also be on an anti-inflammatory NSAID (Bute in this case- think ibuprofen folks) and an oral antibiotic called Baytril- which attacks gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria.
Even after the joint flushes clean and the infection is gone there is still a possibility that Shuttle may have lost full range of motion in that joint due to arthritis that can set in.
We just have to hope and pray she will be 100% sound again after this.
What's on your mind?