Fw: proud flesh/wound care

["Michelle Rowe" <michrowe@frontier.net>]

Ok Ridecampers, this is my experience.  I'd be interested to hear if there
are holes in this anywhere.

I had an arab/saddlebred that would paw the fence (then panic) and cut
himself every time the last cut healed.  Ugh.  I learned a lot about
proudflesh from that @$%@^%*! horse.

Proudflesh looks a little like raw hamburger.  It's granular and a little
bumpy.  It's caused by the healing, tissue forming mechanism going
overboard.  If you stimulate too much tissue growth, you are more likely to
cause proudflesh to form (more on this below).

First, stop scrubbing the wound.  That irritates the tissue and stimulates
it to grow - voila proudflesh.  Paint it or drip Betadine solution on it,
but don't go overboard if it's already been cleaned out good once.  I use a
little squirt bottle and just irrigate cuts with Betadine as they heal up.

Then stop using nitrofurazone on it.  It also stimulates tissue growth,
which you do not want on this wound (wounds on the legs and feet).  My vet
just gave me some ointment that is blue for my horses coronet puncture (I'll
have to find out what it is for you) and she specifically said to use it and
not NFZ as it won't encourage proudflesh like NFZ can.

If you put a bandage on it, be sure the bandage can't come loose and
irritate the tissue - guess what that causes?  You got it, proudflesh.

I put the blue stuff on a square gauze piece, put that against the wound,
wrap a little brown 4" gauze, then a light vetwap layer, then an eazy boot
over the whole thing and my horse can walk around all day and night and
graze and not pull the bandage loose.  If it's muddy, I'd keep the horse in
the stall until it heals up.  You want to limit movement if the movement is
going to irritate the wound.  I kept that @#$%@% arab/saddlebred in a stall
most of a winter because he kept cutting one foot or the other (for a while
both).  When he healed up in the spring, I sold him.

A good, supportive bandage will slow down blood flow to the injured area and
you won't end up with as much proudflesh as leaving it unwrapped.  However,
a bad bandage that rubs will cause more damage than leaving it unwrapped.

You still might want a vet to trim off the proudflesh and start from scratch
on the wound if it's gone untreated (or been treated wrong) and is looking
ugly.  There are also some chemical irritants that can be used to "dissolve"
proudflesh.  I didn't use them on my horse, and would only try it under
advise from a vet as I've heard they can cause more harm than good.

Good luck -

m

----- Original Message -----
From: <guest@endurance.net>
To: <ridecamp@endurance.net>
Sent: Wednesday, September 08, 1999 10:33 AM
Subject: RC: proud flesh/wound care


> Sharon Settles settl002@mc.duke.edu
> Hoping someone can help enlighten me.  Believe it or not I got my first
> pony when I was 6 years old, had 5 horses at one time throughout school,
sold
> became horseless when I left for college, finally got my current horse
> a year ago and never had a cut or injury to deal with ...
> until now that is.  My mare cut her rear right leg on front of her
> pastern about 2 1/2 weeks agos. I wish I had called the vet to see
> if it could have been stitched or not, but nothing I can do about that
now.
> I have been cleaning and treating it with furazone.  I was wrapping
> it until the recent wet weather caused the bandage to stay wet all
> the time and started a minor case of what looks like scratches to me. I
> have now stopped bandaging it and am using Swat to control the flies.
> Finally, my question - can anyone give advice or point me to a website
> that has pictures of proudflesh?  I'm not sure if I should be scrubbing
> the scab down with each cleaning or if this would be like picking off a
scab
> on me and just delay healing.  Because I've never seen proudflesh. I'm not
> sure if what I am seeing is normal healing or not.  I know my mare is
going
> to have a small lump on her leg because of the way the cut was, but I just
want
> to help it heal strong so it won't break everytime she bumps it.
>
> PS:  She never showed signs of infection, never had swelling, or had any
signs
> of lameness.
>
> Thanks for your help,
>
> Sharon
>
>
>
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