I bought a horse who had not been vaccinated/ridden in 4 yrs.... after 2 weeks of riding him regularly- he was vaccinated. The next day he was swollen at the injection site and has been lame now on his front left for 4 weeks. Has anybody had issues with this? That side of his neck was where the 6 way vaccine was given....He is very visibly lame and cannot be ridden or even walk fast on his own..any suggestions....The vet and chiropractor and farrier have all been out... I have been cold water soaking that shoulder 2x daily and then massaging in thermaflex etc. He is also getting aniprin daily as well as arthrisoothe gold....any suggestions please?
Answers (2)
I had a horse a few years ago that foundered after being vaccinated. She was perfectly fine before the vaccinations, but after the vaccinations she was noticeably lame and couldn't be ridden. We had the vet out (the same one who did the vaccinations), and he absolutely refused to acknowledge that the vaccines could be to blame. The farrier suspected founder, so we took her into a different vet to get xrays of her hooves, and sure enough she had foundered. The second vet told us that, in certain relatively rare cases, horses can be extra sensitive to vaccinations and they can cause lameness, laminitis, and founder. Perhaps your horse is sensitive like mine was, or perhaps the sudden 6 way vaccine after 4 years without it was too much for his system. Either way, I would definitely recommend getting xrays of the problem hoof/leg, and you should probably get a second opinion. You can fix founder if you catch it soon enough, as long as you have a great farrier who is willing to work with your vet to re-align everything. My farrier was wonderful, and he custom shoed my horse based on the xrays the vet took so that she healed properly. She made a full recovery, I'm happy to say, we just always have to be careful about spreading out her vaccines. The vet recommended that we never give all of the vaccines at once again to this specific horse.