How to treat a sore leg?

How to treat a cut and swelling in the leg (related or not?)?

• So fly season is here and my horse does this thing where he crosses his front leg and scratches. Well his shoe caught his and he has a small cut that he keeps reopening. I've never had to wrap a cut as my horses never had issues with them reopening. It's not big enough for stitches I just worry about infection. I rinsed the cut, used corona ointment, then I used a non-stick gauze pad, and wrapped it with vet wrap. Made sure not to do it too tight. I just want to make sure I did it right. I bought a stronger fly spray and that seemed to help. I will change it every day. Also I have noticed there was some swelling above it in his cannon bone and he is favoring it. The vet is coming out but I'm curious if the cut could have caused it since he kept ripping it open. He pretty much tripped when he was walk, it was a very small trip mind you, and then he seemed sore after. He is 7 and never been lame or had any injuries. I did run water over his leg for about 10 minutes and I extended the vet wrap to help with the swelling.

• Answer:

  Hopefully he is utd on tetanus vaccinations, and he still may need a booster. This needs to be seen by a vet asap due to both the possibility that it is already infected and to prevent formation of proud flesh that is always a risk in lower leg wounds where the blood supply is compromised, and is especially likely to develop in gapped wounds in which healing has been repeatedly disrupted. Corona should not be used on open wounds and will actually delay and impair healing. Most dressings used in the past are no longer recommended since they bring about immune rejection responses and/or are cytotoxic, meaning that they kill healthy tissue cells needed for healing. Also, ten minutes of hosing with plain water causes healthy cells to swell and rupture, since the water is hypotonic. The approach to treatment of open wounds today is one of "less is more" , and is aimed at enhancing the body's own ability to heal wounds while not interfering with normal immune functions. Only water based ointments are recommended for open wounds. Oil, lanolin, and petroleum based products and wound powders are no longer recommended as they all evoke immune rejection and delay healing. Caustic powders like Wonder Dust are the worst, as they dry the wound bed, they destroy enormous numbers of healthy cells, and they evoke major immune rejection. Strong chemical disinfectant solutions like iodine solutions or hydrogen peroxide are highly cytotoxic and should only be used on intact skin, and not on open wounds. The dead cells killed by these products become food for bacteria and this actually promotes infection rather than preventing it. Sterile isotonic (0.9% salt) saline solution should be used to flush open wounds. It is balanced with body fluids and won't kill healthy cells either by dehydrating and burning them as hypertonic salt solutions do, or saturating and rupturing them as hypotonic solutions like tap water do. Use moderate pressure to flush away debris and microbes, and keep the wound bed moist. You should not use vetwrap without applying thick cotton padding beneath it. You can first apply non-stick gauze, then the cotton sheeting, and then use vetwrap evenly wrapped over that. For these types of wounds, I prefer to use Kling bandage wrap secured with Elastikon tape as it breathes more than vetwrap. Vetwrap should not be applied without cotton padding as it poses a very high risk of circulatory impairment as it unevenly tightens in spots to create a tourniquet effect as the horse moves about. The swelling you see above it now could be from impaired circulation due to a tourniquet effect from the vetwrap. To dress open wounds, the best product on the market is Vetericyn for wounds. It was developed based on years of wound healing research in human medicine and promotes rapid, correct healing by providing ideal conditions for healing. It keeps the wound bed moist, attracts oxygen to the site, doesn't kill healthy cells and doesn't promote immune rejection. OTC antibiotic ointments are also no longer recommended since they promote development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.