Keratoma

Pinky is now securely resting in her "palace" (aka the big stall, and soon to be known as the jail cell).

We picked her up this afternoon and Dr H. showed me how to change the bandage.  While we waited for the vet I read selections from Equine Podiatry.  The description of keratoma fit to a tee. 

Some things I remember were that the keratoma can cause the tissue to bump up at the coronet band. 

see how the hair sticks out at the top of this picture

The keratoma can make the white line deform around the area of the tumor, actually growing inward into the sole area.

directly below the divet in the hoof wall, the white line bows inward

 The keratoma can make the hoof wall itself deform.  The white stripe is actually a high spot the the farrier has rasped to keep smooth, in hopes that it would not collect debris and cause further abscesses.

You can see an old abscess hole, grown out about 1.5 inches from the coronet.

The keratoma can cause chronic abscesses.

You can see the last abscess hole, the pink tissue at the coronet.

Here are a few pictures post surgery.  Of course my camera battery was almost dead, so not as many pictures as I would have liked.

Hmmm, doesn't look too bad yet. 

 Pink has a hole in her hoof, top to bottom.  The keratoma had grown from the coronet downward.  She is sporting a cast for 3 weeks, at which time we'll remove the cast and replace it with a bar shoe. 

It actually looked a lot better than I expected.  Now, to keep it clean!



The cause of much grief.

  Pink got a shot of long term sedative and I picked up some Ace to hopefully take the edge off on re-wrap days.  I will change the bandage out every 3 days and will take some pictures of the healing process.  Wish us luck!