Symptoms
Splints usually cause mild lameness (a grade of 1–2 out of 5). The injured area is hot, painful, and inflamed with a small bony swelling. However, splints do not always cause lameness, especially once "cold". More severe lameness is sometimes associated with a fractured splint bone, or soft tissue injury adjacent to the splints.
"Blind splints" usually produce mild lameness that is difficult to pinpoint because there is no obvious swelling, pain, or bony changes related to the exterior of the splint bone. At times, bone proliferation on the axial border of the splint bone can be seen radiographically, but ultrasound is much more sensitive for detecting blind splints.
The body will eventually absorb some of the bone it placed down in the splint, flattening out the splint over several months and possibly making it completely disappear. A splint involving the cannon alone is more likely to disappear than one involving the splint bone itself.
Read more about this topic: Splints
Famous quotes containing the word symptoms:
“In retirement, only money and symptoms are consequential.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Social movements are at once the symptoms and the instruments of progress. Ignore them and statesmanship is irrelevant; fail to use them and it is weak.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“The human condition is such that pain and effort are not just symptoms which can be removed without changing life itself; they are the modes in which life itself, together with the necessity to which it is bound, makes itself felt. For mortals, the “easy life of the gods” would be a lifeless life.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)