Antibiotic-Anesthetic Combo Effective Lower Limb Treatment

Vets can use amikacin and mepivacaine to safely and effectively treat lower limb injuries in standing, sedated horses.
Share
Favorite
Close

No account yet? Register

ADVERTISEMENT

If a horse has a severe lower limb infection, the veterinarian must treat it immediately and aggressively, using the appropriate antibiotics. To do so, some use a technique called regional limb perfusion (RLP), in which the practitioner places a tourniquet above the injury site, isolating blood flow to the lower limb before injecting antibiotics directly into the vein below the tourniquet. This localizes high concentrations of appropriate antibiotics at the site of infection, injury, or fracture.

Using an anesthetic during this procedure is important, but some antibiotics become ineffective when combined with other drugs.

Aimee Colbath, VMD, of Colorado State University’s Orthopaedic Research Center, in Fort Collins, described her study evaluating a combination of the antibiotic amikacin with the anesthetic mepivacaine at the 2015 American Association of Equine Practitioners Convention, held Dec. 5-9 in Las Vegas

Colbath noted that, because mepivicaine is an effect anesthetic, this combination could be very useful for repairing wounds or flushing synovial (joint) structures in the sedated, standing horse without having to resort to general anesthesia, which can have its own set of complications. Historically researchers have shown that combining amikacin with another antibiotic (ticarcillin) reduced amikacin levels and effectiveness, so Colbath wanted to be sure it wouldn’t be the case with mepivacaine, amikacin, and RLP

Create a free account with TheHorse.com to view this content.

TheHorse.com is home to thousands of free articles about horse health care. In order to access some of our exclusive free content, you must be signed into TheHorse.com.

Start your free account today!

Already have an account?
and continue reading.

Share

Written by:

Nancy S. Loving, DVM, owns Loving Equine Clinic in Boulder, Colorado, and has a special interest in managing the care of sport horses. Her book, All Horse Systems Go, is a comprehensive veterinary care and conditioning resource in full color that covers all facets of horse care. She has also authored the books Go the Distance as a resource for endurance horse owners, Conformation and Performance, and First Aid for Horse and Rider in addition to many veterinary articles for both horse owner and professional audiences.

Related Articles

Stay on top of the most recent Horse Health news with

FREE weekly newsletters from TheHorse.com

Sponsored Content

Weekly Poll

sponsored by:

How much time do you usually spend grooming your horse?
437 votes · 437 answers

Readers’ Most Popular

Sign In

Don’t have an account? Register for a FREE account here.

Need to update your account?

You need to be logged in to fill out this form

Create a free account with TheHorse.com!