Irrigating a drainage tract

[Lam9]

The vet came out Thursday and opened Mimi's lump. I am supposed to irrigate it everyday now until Thursday. I have a plastic syrings to poke up in there and squeeze.

However, Mimi is getting progressively worse about this. I know it is really sore and hurts her. At first I could get the job done with just a little headtossing. But yesterday, I had to have the help of my trainer, a whole bag of carrots, and there was a bit of backing up in the crossties and rearing

I've got to do it again today and tomorrow before the vet comes back. It is draining, there is some yellow gue crusted around the outside of the wound every day now. But man, I am NOT looking forward to doing it again today.

Any advice on how to get this done safely?

[Goalie]

I think you probably do need another person to help you Lam. Wish I had better advice to give you. I'll send good thoughts to Mimi and hope she is a good girl for you.

[niaru]

Ditto, there really isn't any easy way to go about it! Poor you and Mimi.
It reminds me of when Lulla hurt her eye (fungus on cornea) and I had to put drops in it 2x a day...HA! She let me do it for a day then said NOPE, so I took her to the clinic, they put in a catheter and it made everything so easy! I'm so glad they did. It probably saved her eye.
Good luck.

[Luci]

Good luck. Sounds like a huge chore and poor girl just thinks you are torturing her. Any chance she could have a little happy drugs just for now so you can do this?

[abowls]

We got these problems with constant treatments a lot at the hospital. We usually have to play around a bit to see what works best with the individual horse. I usually start out simply placing the hand that I don't need over the nose. I don't ever push down with my hand b/c that makes them fight against me. If they struggle I stand patiently WITH my hand in the same position until they stop head tossing, threatening to rear or whatever, then I slowly but confidently raise the syringe and attempt to complete the treatment. If she starts to head toss again I go back to the standby position of hand on nose waiting. If this goes on forever and seems as though it will never work I usually move to the next logical step to me which is to hold their lip with my hand. For a lot of them just holding their lip in a twitch-like grip will make them stand stock still and allow you to do what you need to do. If both of these fail I use a rope twitch. In 5 years cumulative at the hospital I have only seen a handful of patients that one of these three methods wouldn't work with. We have to work around their faces ALL OF THE TIME. We give oral meds, we draw blood from their facial sinus, we flush abscess wholes or do eye meds...most of them will be fine if you approach with in a calm but confident manner. I actually do yoga breathing before going in with a horse that I know may be difficult to treat. Also, if the horse is bad you may find that having one person is better some of them really don't like to have multiple people. I think it makes them feel attacked.

Finally, this may be just personal preference (since I'm always treating horses in stalls) but I would take the horse out of the cross-ties and put them in a stall with a halter and plain leadrope. If you stand on the end of the lead rope WITHOUT the rope being tight. You can potentially keep the horse from being able to wheel and kick in anger (if she is prone to that). If the horse looks like it might rear reach for the lead rope and hold it as loosely as you can just to make sure that you can control where their butt is and of course stand to the side to try to be out of the way of front hooves.

It varies from horse to horse what works best but it sounds like yours is one of those that will like you to lead her to believe that she is allowing you to do this and definately not one that will respond well to you forcing her to allow you to do this. Just STAY CALM, breath, do not raise your voice, and do not pull on her head at all. She'll just fight back and you can't match her strength (that's why I suggested taking her out of the cross ties b/c if she starts to toss her head or rear and hits the cross ties she'll probably really freak out.

If only I could apply these same principles to riding . I can treat some crazy horses and stay calm but when I ride I can't stay calm.

[Lam9]

Thanks for the good thoughts all, I keep telling myself just 2 more days until the vet is back out! If I have to continue after that, I will definitely ask about some Ace or something happy.

abowls - just read your post, thank you for all of the advice! I will try your 3 step approach.

I have mixed feelings on the cross ties too. I don't like them, I don't like seeing horses freak out in them (obviously). If you really piss mimi off, she will spin and kick. I am not very stable on my feet after an ankle injury, so I don't think I can prevent her from doing this if she decided to, hence the crossties. But I agree this is not a good option either.

I am working on the calm thing too, but I am also bad with blood and gue. So I am simultaneously trying to work through 3 issues (worrying that I am hurting her, worry she will freak out, and being grossed out). Overall, I am a bad person for this job!

"it sounds like yours is one of those that will like you to lead her to believe that she is allowing you to do this and definately not one that will respond well to you forcing her to allow you to do this. "
Yes, that is definitely true!

[abowls]

The calm thing really is the most important thing. I struggled with it for a while too. Seriously if you need to stand outside the stall and breath for a minute or so before attempting this. Give yourself some sort of time goal like I'm going to inhale for 6 seconds hold it for 4 seconds and then exhale for 8 seconds. It really works to put you in the right frame of mind. If you get excited she WILL get worse every time. Also, given that force is a bad thing with her and she may get nasty I think that two people is a BAD thing for her. Not only will she feel forced but when she flips out you have two people trying to get the he!! out of the way. I'm sure that you are aware of this but if you're in a stall leave the door open enough to give yourself an escape route but not enough for her to bully her way through. Good luck! It does sound like you've got a tough job and you're kind of getting thrown in to treat a difficult case. If you must drug her into oblivion to make sure that you don't get hurt then that's what you have to do. I don't think that ace will do much good. In my experience it takes the edge off a slightly excitable horse but when they react that strongly it does nothing against the huge tantrums that occur when they get really pissed/freaked out. Again that's just personal opinion...

[sarafina]

i'm another for no crossties. fifi tends to freak out and back up and break them, and that's a royal PITA besides being risky. i much prefer doing that kind of stuff in the stall (although, inspect the stall to see if the ceiling is high enough to allow for a little tipping up so the horse doesn't inadvertently strike its head).

when i treated fifi's eye, or when i worm her, i put on her halter and plain lead rope and back her butt into a corner of her stall. if she freaks out and brings her head up, she can't back up to rear. this just seems to work for her. i usually chant "atta girl, easy, life's hard when you're furry" and the like. but i always make sure i'm closer to the door than she is.

sometimes i will use a twitch, but not often.

the other thing i was wondering about the crusted goop is could you put a clean, warm wet sponge on it for a couple of seconds to loosen the goo? no rubbing, just place it on there. sometimes that goo can harden and pull at the sore spots, and make the horse hurt worse.

i wish that the vets would dispense a spray on lidocaine for topical so that you could numb up the area quickly and work from there.

[Lam9]

I'll try both the tips today sara and abowls, thanks again! I think if this needs to continue after Thursday I will ask about keeping her at the vet's for it. I have been putting a warm sponge over the area to start, but she doesn't even like that much.

Although she does have a temper, she is generally very good about most things - worming, shots, farrier, chiro, etc. I think this lump is really hurting her

[sarafina]

poor little girl. i'm so sorry. hopefully this will do the trick and she can just heal over.

fifi has herself a little temper too. anything involving pain (shots, vetwork) or worming is simply beyond the pale according to fifi. she wants NOTHING to do with it. good luck.

are you flushing with saline? could you warm the saline a bit in the microwave? that way the temperature change would n't be a factor either. or perhaps i'm just playing into the princess-ness too much? ;D

[alisonph]

Lam,

If you think of running an open wound under water, like if you burn your hand really bad, it hurts only if the water is forceful or really cold.

Are you irrigating with plain saline or adding iodine or novalsan solution? It seems as though the irrigation shouldn't be painful and might even feel good.

I feel your pain with the irrigation. Benson is very, very bad with wounds and would be doing the same things as Mimi. Shady, on the other hand, is the best patient on the planet and let me rip and tear at his wound to get the best irrigation spots.

[Lam9]

sara and alison - yep, I'm washing it with room temperature saline only. I could try warming it a bit, lol.

The odd thing is, that it does feel good to her sometimes But sometimes it tickles and then she shakes her head and rams into the syringe tip, and now it's this terrible thing. But she will oscillate between the "ohhhh that feels good look" and wigging out and rearing up...

[filly]

Man, Lam, that stinks. I don't have any better advice than was written above. I would second the warming of the saline though. I used Nolvasan diluted for Katy's last summer but it was so freaking hot I'm sure it was nice to feel it almost cool! lol I know as the pressure builds, it can be uncomfortable for them. Maybe she oscillates because it feels good and itches and then hurts all at once?

Good luck and sending lots of jingles for both of you! ;D

[animaldoc]

Better living through chemistry.....

I'm all for sedation. Especially at first- if you do it for a few days, she may realize it's not so bad and you may be able to do it without.

[fancyhorse]

One word - TWITCH! Its a life saver!