Mystery puffiness

["Alison Dunn" <alcritters@hotmail.com>]

I"ve never run into anything like this before. Last August I took my arab 
gelding up to Kennedy Meadows for
a camping trip. We started out up a rocky trail.  He stepped into a ditch 
that 2 horses had just crossed, and
ended up on the other side dead lame, with a small cut across the front of 
the left pastern, and a scrape on the
back of the cannon below the hock.  I led him back down the trail - he used 
the foot, but didn't like it.  I
stood him in the river off and on the next 2 days til we went home.  (Home 
is a stall and paddock.)  He was
slightly lame, but by the end of  week, was perfectly sound.  I hand walked 
him everyday, and at intervals in
the next week I would ride him  out at a walk on flat ground for no more 
than an hour - in a few hours, the
fetlock and pastern would really puff  up - but no heat and no lameness. (It 
looked so bad at first that I used a
standing wrap on it.  I stopped using that after a day or two.)  I finally 
gave up riding, and would just take him
on a walk twice a day for  about 5 weeks.  Once in awhile I would try a 
small ride, and get the same puffiness
in that left rear.  I finally had him ultra sounded - they found tendon and 
ligaments to be fine.  It's been 4
months now.  I can walk, trot, and canter in the arena with no puffiness in 
that foot.  I ventured out for a short
ride late last Saturday - the ground was perfect - not too hard - some 
trotting -  the next day, there was some puffiness in that fetlock and 
pastern only. Again, no lameness or heat.
What more can I do?  What really gets me, is what did he do to himself?  I 
never felt the leg catch on
anything.  It seemed so minor!   HELP!


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