Week Four in Somerset

This week was the week of foals, which has been interesting if a little bit more stressful. Most of the foals that come into the clinic have serious conditions and have to be monitored closely. Our most recent case is a week-old foal that came in on Saturday night with colic and diarrhea. She presented in so much discomfort that her owners and referring vet could barely stand her up long enough to get her on the trailer. When she arrived, we ran blood work, examined the abdomen with the ultrasound, and performed a belly tap. We found a small amount of enteritis, but no other major problem. Dr. Brown was reluctant to consider surgery as an option since young foals have a greater risk of developing adhesions. Instead, we put the filly on antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, and supportive fluids. Throughout the night, she became much more comfortable, but continued to have diarrhea. We were able to determine that the cause of her diarrhea was a clostridial infection. She was isolated in separate barn to prevent infecting the other foals. She is continuing her antibiotic treatment and will hopefully be well enough to go home in a few days.

Two other foals are staying with us this week due to septic hocks. Both foals have been treated with a series of three joint flushes, which essentially pumps and drains a large volume of sterile fluid through the infected joint to wash out bacteria. Then, antibiotics are injected into the joint to eliminate the infection. As we flush the joint, we also perform a regional limb perfusion. This procedure requires tourniquets to be placed above and below the infected region. Antibiotics are then injected into a vein (in these cases the saphenous vein) and perfuse through the tissues in higher concentrations than if they were administered systemically. Both foals have responded to their first two flushes and will be able to go home when the white blood cell count in their joint fluid is sufficiently low.

The last tiny guest at Brown Equine Hospital is the three-month old foal with the fractured calcaneus that I wrote about last week. He is doing extremely well, with no signs of infection yet. I have included a couple pictures of the fracture repair surgeries and his before and after pictures below. 

 

Pre-, Intra-, and Post- Op radiographs of the calcaneal fracture repair