I hope you are NOT familiar with cellulitis, because it is not good. There’s an image of a horse leg with cellulitis below (graphic warning).
Articles state that over 50% of cellulitis cases come with no warning, and no signs of trauma or cut skin.
It’s currently a veterinary mystery. Which is why it’s on today’s Horse Mysteries Solved podcast.
A fairly short chat about what the typical treatments are vs. what is the real cause.

Cellulitis Image Courtesy of Dr. Marcella
Links Mentioned:
TuckerBioKinetic.com
Summary:
Summary by AI:
Dr. Renee Tucker, an equine veterinarian, discusses cellulitis, a condition where a horse’s leg swells significantly. She explains that cellulitis is often misunderstood as a diagnosis when it’s actually a description of swelling due to inflammation of cells. While antibiotics and steroids may initially help reduce swelling, it’s crucial to address the underlying cause. Chronic cases require identifying why the swelling persists, often involving issues with the lymphatic system, which drains waste from the body. Traditional tests may not provide answers, but alternative approaches like energy work, lymphatic massage, red light therapy, or acupuncture can help. Understanding the root cause is key to effective treatment.
Transcription:
Renee (00:00)
Hello there. Welcome. I’m Dr. Renee Tucker, equine veterinarian. Today, I just want to tell you a quick story from the field about cellulitis. You may not have heard of cellulitis. It’s not super common, but I don’t see anybody talking about it, so I thought, well, I might as well. Also, I just saw a horse with cellulitis, so there you go. Maybe it’s getting more common than I thought. All right, what is cellulitis? Well, in a horse, in cellulitis, we see one, usually one, leg that is just swollen. I mean, not just double size, but triple, even. I know it’s painful for me to say, but quadruple size. Legs just swollen from the foot, usually about to the hook, the whole leg. It looks like a big tree chunk. It looks horribly painful, and it is because it’s so stretched out. Cellulitis, the itis, as you may know, means inflammation. Cells, that means the cells of your body. All cellulitis, the word is telling you is inflammation of the cells. It’s swollen. I think, yeah, that’s the official name for swollen is cellulitis. Not very helpful. But you know what’s funny is sometimes people think that’s a diagnosis, and they do.
Renee (01:27)
Doctors think that’s a diagnosis. As soon as my client recently, her veterinarian, saw the horse for cellulitis and, Oh, this is cellulitis. Here’s your antibiotics and steroids. Because why? They think there’s a infection to make it swell up, and they want to get rid of the swelling, which means antibiotics and steroids. Okay, now that did help my client, her horse. It’s The swelling got down probably half as much. It’s a 50% decrease. That’s nice. The horse was feeling better. Here’s the thing. You, hopefully, are thinking to yourself, Oh, yes, inflammation of the cells. But Why? Exactly. You are going down the right track. It’s always about the why. Why are the cells swelling? Why? Why is there an infection? Really? Are we sure? Sometimes there is actually an infection. Sometimes you may be able to see some broken skin or just even a little really small type of pin prick where maybe a branch or a thorn just poke the skin and got some bacteria in there that’s not supposed to be there and the leg swells up. That’s fine. That’s nothing wrong with the plan here. We got swelling, we got an infection, let’s treat it.
Renee (02:58)
Done. And it should be done within a week. But there’s lots of horses, well, not a lot, but I happen to know a lot of them. And people also, I have a friend who has bad cellulitis. She, too, has one leg that’s a tree trunk. I used to do her horses back when she had horses. Now, this has been a few years back, so I don’t know right where she’s at now. But it was so swollen, guys, like a tree trunk. Sometimes, oh, this is painful, so swollen that the skin starts giving out and things start ooosing out. It’s just this serum that oooses out because it’s so swollen. In these chronic cases, we have got to find the why. Because when I first met her, she told me about her cellulitis. I said, Oh, gosh, that sounds terrible. What do you do? And she said, Well, she’s on and antibiotics and steroids. It has been for four years. I about fell over, literally in my, What? And at the time, I was trying to Not be horrified, not by her, but by this. Antibiotics and steroids for four years? You’re kidding me right now?
Renee (04:22)
That’s killing your liver, your kidneys, your stomach, everything else. And it’s not helping because she still had to go at least weekly to this lymphatic massage. And kudos to the lymphatic massage people because it kept her out of a lot of pain. But it’s very interesting, this lymphatic massage. It’s extremely gentle. And gentle is not even the right word. She did it on me a little bit. You’re barely touching the skin. What I believe they’re doing is moving fluid out of the subcutaneous to try to help. Because why? That’s the question. Why can’t the body get the fluid out? So with my friend’s horse recently that I just saw, I corrected the lymphatic system. There were some things blocking the lymphatic system to get into, but no problem for energy work. I cleared that up, and she said within an hour, the horse was standing… Of my treatment, within an hour of my treatment, the horse was standing on all four legs instead of holding that one up, and an abscess blew out the bottom. Yeah, the horse had cellulitis from an abscess, which was unable to get out the foot for some reason. I’m not sure about that right now.
Renee (05:51)
And instead, that infection with an abscess was traveling up the leg. So while the antibiotics and steroids helped the leg, they really did not help the abscess bust out. That horse is all fine now. I explained to her, Look, cellulitis just means swelling. Okay? Swealing of the cells, the whole tissue. It is no fun. Now, I never did get to work on my human patient because she lives far away. But for anybody who knows someone with chronic cellulitis, please try to think, one, that’s not really a diagnosis. It’s a description. The question is why. Again, unfortunately, traditional medicine, all the tests, aren’t going to get you an answer. But there’s plenty of alternative ways to go which will get you an answer, not just a treatment. There’s plenty of treatments, red light, acupuncture, plenty of things will help cellulitis. But the question is why? It’s usually a problem with the lymphatic system. Lymphatic system is what drains all the garbage, if you will, out of the body. It’s like a whole super cool garbage shoot. Okay, it’s not quite like that because we have intestines that also poop out garbage. But generally within the cells, the cells do have stuff they’re getting rid of, and it goes in the emphatic system.
Renee (07:33)
If that’s not flowing, you got problems, usually seen in cellulitis. Okay, that was pretty short, but please let me know if that made sense, if you have any other questions. As always, keep asking, But why is it there? Then we’ll find our answers. Thanks again for listening, guys. I’ll talk to you later.
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3 Comments on “Podcast Episode 46: Cellulitis”
Thank you. That was great.
Thank you so much for this podcast Renee! Some months ago my mare was injured and the wounds happened to be on the front legs where she would scratch to itch. Long story short, the wounds got infected and one part of one leg swelled in an unusual manner: became very hard and just would not heal. Topical antibiotics did not help, nor did local perfusion with an antibiotic. Eventually oral antibiotics did help the healing of the wounds, and the swelling, but not completely. She did have laminitis at roughly the same time, so after listening to your podcast I feel that there is a lymphatic blockage. Canβt wait for the Module IV seminar to learn how to work on that and help my horse! πππ
Hi Dorota,
Yes, I bet you’re right about your mare.
See you in Mod IV. :)
Renee