Re: hoof puncture news

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

> At 01:24 PM 9/25/00, Michelle Fink wrote:
> >he pared out a wide hole around the puncture site, and packed it with
PMMA
> >beads impregnated with antibiotics
>
> What're PMMA beads?  Lif

polymethmethacrylate = pmma

It's stuff they use to reconstruct bones, like a high tech plastic.  It
comes in a powder, gets mixed with some other gooey stuff, and then is a
mold-able, quick drying plastic.  Your vet probably has some.  They can
prepare it with powdered antibiotics mixed in it, and the plastic material
will release the antibiotics slowly over a few weeks (vs. gauze soaked with
antibiotics, which requires daily packing).  Typically they are made with
Naxcel or Gentocin (spelling aside, please).  They use the beads in people,
particularly in hip replacements or open fractures, as the last thing a
surgeon wants is an infection after it starts healing up.  The beads can be
left in the body permanently, or can be removed as healing progresses.  My
horse has ball shaped beads in the lower abscess tracts, and a triangle
shaped bead that is inserted into the coronet band abscess.  There are
shavings inserted into one of the odd shaped tracts.  The beads are often
made on a string, much like a pearl necklace.  That allows the surgeon to
pack in a whole bunch, and remove them all easily.

m