The Down-Side of Our Trip to see Fallon

Yesterday I posted about our trip down to Gainsville to Dynasty Equine for DD to get some riding time with Fallon Taylor to iron out her barrel problems! The time there was awesome! We had such a blast watching DD do these things that came so natural after Fallon explained them to her. Nothing like having a Pro Barrel Racer teach your kid!

So we dropped Krissy off at Dynasty Equine late Wednesday night and had DD's lesson on Thursday afternoon. When we got there Thursday Krissy was doing great, she did have a little bit of drainage in her eyes but I kind of felt like it was *normal* for her as she is a pretty sensitive horse. We took our own hay and feed for her but in the stalls they have trofts to hold the hay and in that troft under the hay we put in was remnants of Alfalfa hay, and not just a little....but a LOT! My thought process on this was she came from this ranch so I felt like she should do fine even with the different hay in the bottom of that troft.

So Friday we did not make it back to Dynasty as we spent the whole day at Six Flags with the family (that was the vacation part of our trip LOL)...We were originally scheduled to leave for home on Saturday but our family in TX wanted us to stay and barbecue/swim Saturday night. So the Hubby and I decided that would be great and made arrangements for Krissy to stay another night at Dynasty. DD was already scheduled to ride with Fallon or Haley on Saturday but the original plan was to have her ride one of their horses so we didn't get Krissy all worked and then drive for 6-7 hours. But since we were not leaving that day I decided she could just ride her so when we arrived at Dynasty on Saturday I went to get Krissy out of her stall as DD and the Hubby unloaded her saddle etc.

I walked into the stall and Krissy had her head hanging down so I leaned down to put her halter on and when she turned her head to me I nearly fainted at what I saw! Her eyes were SO swollen she could barely see! They were nearly swelled shut! So I halter her quickly and then *thank God* that she trusts me enough to lead her blind! I take her out and the girls and I are looking at her and basically decided she's had an allergic reaction to the Alfalfa. Fallon also mentioned that it was possible that fly's had gotten up under her eyelids and deposited eggs but either way they needed to be flushed.

Saturday after 2 flushings






So the Hubby and I flushed her eyes for about 45 minutes each 3 different times while DD was off filming video's with Fallon. I was disappointed since I couldn't watch cause she apparently had a full force run on Postman, Fallon's horse! They said it was AWESOME! So anyhoo, we then went and bought benadryl for Krissy as we didn't have any Dex or access too any. The benadryl did seem to calm her for a brief time while we flushed for the 3rd time but I didn't have much faith that it would help her issue.

Saturday



So Sunday morning we rose bright and early to get there and get Krissy away from whatever was bothering her. When we got there Sunday they were actually worse! I didn't think it was possible but yep it was...Literally they were swollen shut! She looked like she had a few golf balls stuffed under her top eyelids! So we flushed again and gave more benadryl and started our trek back home. Once we were on the road I called one of our Equine specialists and told him what was going on and he said he felt like I was describing a severe allergic reaction and she would definitely need a heavy dose of Dex but if I didn't want to travel that extra hour from home to take her there she would probably be fine to wait until my regular vet was back to work Monday morning (they weren't taking emergency calls as they were on vacation for the weekend). I told him that I would check her when we were a couple of hours from home and then decide. When we finally stopped to check on her the Hubby and I decided that we weren't taking any chances and wanted her seen as soon as we could get there. We were feeling SO very bad for her as she was obviously miserable and we were afraid she would injure her face or eyes trying to scratch as she had already scraped her face scratching a few times.

Getting a good flushing Sunday morning







I called the Dr and he met us there. His response when he saw her was "Holy COW I have never seen a horse with their top eyelids SO swollen"!! He said he was very glad we decided to bring her in because he too was afraid she was going to scratch her cornea or injure herself with it like this. So he aced her first then flushed her eyes out with saline, flushed her tear ducts, checked her cornea's for any scratches with those green dye strips, put triple antibiotic ointment in her eye, and gave her a good dose of Dex!





We talked about her sensitivity to these things and he sold me a bottle of Dex to have on hand for this type of thing in the future. He said had we been able to Dex her Thursday when the drainage started it wouldn't have gotten this bad. My instructions were to flush with saline and put the ointment in her eyes 2 x daily for a few days and give her 5 cc's of Dex Monday for sure and Tuesday if needed.









Monday was a bit eventful since the Hubby was out of town and I had to do all of that by myself...Not so easy to squirt saline into a horses eye while trying to keep her head down, not to mention trying to put the ointment in....Then for her Dex she wasn't really thrilled about the needle going in, which was a bit strange for her because she doesn't typically throw fits, but she kind of did that day! However I probably would have to if I felt as badly as she did!

So Tuesday she was looking much better and the Hubby was home again so doing the routine was a breeze with his help! We got her all fixed up and expect her to look great in the morning!