Cow with sore foot.

This past Monday 1-9-12 we had a cow come up with a sore left rear foot. She couldn't hardly walk. We put her in the corral and called the veterinarian to take a look at her. Had her in the squeeze chute. Couldn't find anything. Her ankle and foot was swollen. The vet. said she thought the cow had an infection and started her on 20cc penicillin and gave her a shot of pain med. Told me to follow up on Wed and Friday with 20cc of penicillin both days. On Wed we gave the second round of penicillin and the cow was not any better. Our preacher is also a semi-retired veterinarian, after I told him what was going on with the cow said to take a large freezer bag and put Epsom salts in the bag enough to make a slurry to cover up above the cows due claws and duct tape the bag above the due claws to keep the bag on the cows foot not cutting off her blood circulation. Then take a towel and wrap the foot to hold the slurry up on her foot good and also to protect the plastic bag long enough to let the foot soak in the Epsom salts slurry. He said that would draw any infection out of her foot. The next day she was walking better. I waited until Saturday to give the last 20cc of the penicillin. Today 1-15-12 we turned the cow out. Just thought if you can't find anything wrong with a cows foot the Epsom salts slurry might be something to try.