Horses have a way of hurting themselves in even ideal circumstances. It may be from a bang to the knee area. Or he got caught in the fence and twisted it out. Or else some form of swelling due to the fact that his leg is now in use after being stabled for a year, so a previous condition is showing up, whereas it did not when he stood still with no freedom for a year. Some kind of arthritis or something.
The most likely thing for sudden lameness is usually a hoof abcess, which will come on suddenly and show no injury usually. That requires a poultice to the right hoof and waiting to see if it bursts, in which case lameness will resolve almost instantly. The farrier or vet can examine the base of the hoof for any signs of pain and cut carefully into it to try to drain the area. In that case I would expect the swelling to reach from the hoof up to the knee, though. But could be from the fact that he is putting pressure on the knee from the pain in the hoof that it may be just aggravating the knee area only. Usually they will point the toe, if it is a hoof abcess.
Also, it may be a hoof abcess and the knee swelling is totally unrelated.
Or he may have broken some area in his knee or hoof and have an infection. My horse had NO sign of anything, was suddenly lame as hell and the swelling spread up his leg to his knee, and after 4 weeks of thinking it was a hoof abcess, it turned out to be a tiny bone chip, like a pen nib had poked into his hoof and broken a tiny bit of pedal bone, just a tiny circular bit and it ate away the coffin joint and went septic and advised to put him down, but I operated and he is galloping without lameness now, but it was a 5 figure sum to save him.
I do not wanna scare you, but please don't wait too long to get a vet, things like this can turn catastrophic, they look simple on the outside and may well be, but inside you may have a disaster waiting to happen, so it saves you lots more money to act fast, get an x ray, take a joint tap to make sure the fluid is not infected.
Food can also cause swelling, if he has eaten something that did not agree with his system.
It's a very awful situation to hear of a horse stabled for that long... I am happy to hear you got him out of that prison. I hope it is just the use of the joint and his awkwardness at his new found freedom and working hooves that has caused a simple injury when he banged it on something....but please make sure it is only that.
Kim xoxoxox
________________________________
From: mistimurr <mistimurr@yahoo.com>
To: askavet@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, 2 September, 2009 11:19:20 PM
Subject: [AskAVet] unexplained lameness
I bought my husband a Appalachin Spotted Saddle horse in April, and he had bad feet. He had been stalled for over a year, almost never riden and his feet were very brittle and cracked. We had the farrier look at him, and he pulled his shoes. His hooves then started peeling, it looked like pencil shavings. Finally, his feet are sound. Yesterday I went out to groom them , I noticed him limping on his right forleg. There is no injury to the leg, or hoof. His knee is swollen, but there is no heat in the joint, and no heat from the hoof. When I checked him this morning, his knee is still swollen and his still limping. We haven't ridden him, because his feet have been so bad, and just now gotten sound, so I'm not sure how he would have gotten hurt. Any ideas?
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