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Re: [RC] Wind Puffs - Ridecamp GuestPlease Reply to: Bruce Weary bweary@xxxxxxxxxxxx or ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx ========================================== Hi Tiffany-- Thank you for joining the discussion of wind puffs. Always good to get more than one perspective. Regarding your question about chronic versus acute wind puffs, consider this: Let's say you have a horse in your corral with perfect clean legs. No blemishes, swellings or defects of any kind. During the night, he injures himself, and you wake up the next morning to find a wind puff (which is a slang term describing a local,contained filling on either side of the upper portion of the fetlock joint. The term is not a specific diagnosis and can be used to refer to an old or new one) on one of his legs. This would be a new, or acute, "wind puff" the cause of which, and nature of which is yet to be determined. This as opposed to a 10 year old horse you are considering buying that you notice has wind puffs and the owner assures you they have been there for years and have never bothered him. Those would then be chronic (and I like Heidi's term, adaptive changes) wind puffs, and not likely to change. In the first case, the wind puff formation is likely an acute formation of synovial fluid developing as a response to the new injury. The synovium and joint capsule have not had time to thicken and be the explanation for the enlargement. Aggressive therapy at this point, will relieve the swelling and promote healing, and if there are no other aggravating factors, a full recovery may be obtained with no residual "wind puff" formation left behind. In other words, the fact that there is distension of the tissue initially, doesn't necessarily mean there will be an inevitable permanent wind puff following. Having said this, I will agree that permanent wind puffs (and their various causes) rarely cause any lameness or other difficulty for the horse. I'm just kind of a fanatic about my horses legs, as I imagine many endurance riders are. Thanks Bruce Weary =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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