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Wound care ideas Re: [RC] An unusual case - very thin skin - Elizabeth Chase

I have a three rat test.....  

My Akhal Teke mare has butter soft skin that seems as tender as either a baby 
or a very elderly person. She gets lots of scrapes that clear up easily. 

I had a TB mare rescue that went through a fence and tore the bejesus out of 
her leg and chest. Her skin was pretty thin to begin with, even before getting 
hurt, but after three months of 'my' wound care showed no scarring, and the 
hair even grew back. 

TB gelding that regularly forgets to watch where he's going. He is chock-full 
of scars from his former life, and seems to form them easily, regardless of 
what I do. Then again, he is 18, and all of us old folks are less supple. 


And lots of experience with wound care and burns on humans.


I think what you need first is resiliency of tissue in that area, and NO EXTRA 
MOVEMENT (just his normal day to day in the pasture activity), NO SADDLING. I 
know that's hard, but it's ultimately the shorter road.  I like to take my 
horses for walks like I take my dogs for walks.... lots of fun.

By resiliency I mean the skin has the flexibility to move without cracking. You 
need that before you can get 'tough'. I guess the word I'm searching for is 
'supple'.

I used a homeopathic remedy on the horses that included medical honey, comfrey 
root, st. John's wort, and vitamin E ointment until the actual wound healed 
(from the inside out, sometimes rwquires packing). Then I make a concoction 
minus the honey and use it as a skin emollient until the hair returns (my 
experience).

In humans we have a bunch of detailed wound cares until the skin starts to 
granulate, but once the base layer grows back in, which includes skin grafts, 
we use emollients/ointments like bacitracin, and encourage patients to use 
emollients like cocoa butter and Vit E ointments to keep the skin supple.

This is also a factor in helping the reduction of keloid (scar) tissue.


Hope you find something useful in my ramblings.

LizC
Minn

--- On Mon, 9/29/08, Don Huston <donhuston@xxxxxxx> wrote:


From: Don Huston <donhuston@xxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [RC] An unusual case - very thin skin
To: ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Monday, September 29, 2008, 1:38 PM
Hello Kathy,

I'm just guessing here without seeing the scar but
years ago I had a 
horse that slipped in a muddy pen and slid sideways into a
T-post. 
She got a 6" rip on the ribs behind the right front
leg just at the 
edge of where the edge of the cinch would lie. The horse
got R&R for 
several months. When we started riding again the scar was
1/2" wide 
at the widest with no hair and would crack there sometimes.
It seemed 
to me that the skin was dry, not thin, so I smeared on
various 
creams, Bag Balm, Gall Salve, Corona, Cortesone, while the
horse was 
in the pen. The stuff collected dirt and looked nasty but
when I 
stopped the cream a day before riding and brushed the dirt
off well 
(or hosed off the dirt with just water, no soap or drying
cleanser) 
the scar stopped cracking and after several more months it
was a 
non-issue and no more cream was needed. Just my
one-rat-test.

Don Huston



At 07:48 AM 9/29/2008 Monday, you wrote:

I have a very unusual case and I'm hoping someone

out there

has an idea.  When my neighbor's horse was about 2

years

old he tried to clear a fence panel, got caught 1/2 way

over,

and just about tore off his entire right front leg up

between the

leg and rib cage.  (He was about a 1/4 inch from

severing the

artery and bleeding to death.)

He's 5 now and fully recovered (although the muscle

tissue

in the area won't fully grow back).  However, the

skin that is

over the old wound in the area is very thin and

re-tears now

if he's cinched up close to that area or if he

extends that leg

far enough.

We use more of a center fire rigging which works fine,

but the

skin in the area will still tear when we work on his

training

either saddled or at liberty.

Is there anything we can do to toughen up the skin

there?

We have gotten no answers or good ideas from the vets

here.

(Not that we don't have excellent vets in NM... 

;-)  )  I don't

know if pin firing would help or not.  Any ideas are

welcome.

Thanks!  You can email me directly at:

magnumsmom at aol . com.

:) - Kathy
ps... a huge hello to all old and new friends out

there...


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Don Huston
San Diego, CA
donhuston @ cox .net



     

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Replies
Re: [RC] An unusual case - very thin skin, Don Huston