Last Tuesday morning, Donnelly's hurt leg swelled up. I turned him out in his paddock, thinking he could just walk it off. Tuesday night I came home and all his legs were swollen, along with a big swelling on his tummy and little knots all over him. I called the vet, and they thought he might have gotten caste in his stall (they can roll over and get stuck, then freak out and bang themselves up - although when they get older they just lay there and wait for you to come roll them back!). So, the vet suggested we see how he did overnight.
Weds morning and evening he hadn't gotten any better, so I called again. They suggested I wrap his legs to reduce swelling, since he was beginning to look like the Stay-Puff Marshmellow Man. Thursday morning, the part under the wrappings had gone down, but the rest of him was the same. So, we went ahead and took him up to A&M Thursday night to stay the weekend there.
After seeing him and running tests, they determined he had not caste himself, but instead had a strange auto-immune reaction to something and puffed up (called vasculitis). So, they gave him steroids, and they seem to have done the trick and the swelling is all but gone. We were able to pick him up last night and bring him home. He'll be on lower strength steroids for the next 4 weeks just in case.
Leave it to Donnelly to have some wacky diagnosis .... luckily, they said it is probably isolated and should not continue to be a problem after this.
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