CASE STUDY
Pressage Bandages for the Knee
In February 2017 Nasa went over while being ridden on a gravel road. He sustained injuries to both of his front knees and head. Due to the severity of the injuries (both of the synovial capsules had ruptured), the lengthy treatment and recovery time, added to the fact that at any stage an infection could take hold, the initial veterinarian consultation started off with us having to decide if we wanted to euthanize or not.
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Being a young and healthy horse otherwise, we decided to go with treatment. The vet had to clean out all foreign bodies from the joints and debride some of the tissue that was no longer viable.
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Next started weeks of trying to keep the dressings on, not only keep infection out but to try and reduce the swelling around the knee joints at the same time.
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We tried many different bandaging techniques and sought advice from other horse owners far and wide. It got to a stage where the dressings were having to be reapplied sometimes several times a day which lead to a lot of stress and cost. The constant fear was doing more harm from over tight bandages while at the same time trying to get them to stay in place.
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Elastiplast adhesive bandages would start to slip down after the first day. Vetrap bandages lasted normally half a day. In desperation we tried to overlay strapping or loosely applied duct tape. Using tubular gauze over the bandages and dressings was another partial solution but nothing seemed to last a couple of days. We would invariably found him first thing in the morning or on our return from work with the bandages slipped down exposing the raw, weeping holes of his knees.
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Nasa was oblivious to the reasons why we were trying to keep the bandages on and as the wounds started to heal, they became irritating causing him try scratching them through the bandages, further speeding up the process of the removal of the bandages and dressings.
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To try and combat this, the outsides of the bandages were slathered with a cayenne pepper / wasabi / vaseline mixture. By the time this was applied to a grumpy horse, we were constantly having burning eyes ourselves through contamination on our skin and clothes.
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It was then that we came across the Pressage Bandages. The zip opening allowed for quick application and the ventilation panels meant that the skin could breathe. More importantly, strategic openings allowed for chaffing over the bony pressure points to be avoided.
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Dressing changes became easier without having to hope that Nasa would stand still long enough to wrap a bandage around his leg. The washable material meant that the Pressage bandage could be washed when it became muddy and dirty from the wounds themselves. Because the leg was encased in the bandage, Nasa also couldn't push it down when he tried to scratch.
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We were so impressed with the effectiveness of the Pressage Bandage, that we became intent on bringing it to the market at a reasonable cost and to ensure that we maintain sufficient stocks on hand, because when your horse is injured, you don't have time to wait.
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