Equine Laser Therapy: Sore Back, Idiopathic Swelling and Lameness in Racehorse | ACTIVet PRO

Louise Ballinger treats back soreness and a swollen and lame leg in this racehorse in 3 steps: relaxing with the Unwind Protocol, relieving pain and inflammation in the leg, and finishing with photohemotherapy to increase blood flow and oxygen in the leg. For laser sales, demos and support, contact Louise Ballinger at 352-427-0151 or [email protected]. Learn more about the laser she's using, the ACTIVet PRO: http://www.multiradiance.com/veterina... Video Transcript This horse came out of a race with a sore back, specifically the lower back, along with idiopathic swelling and lameness in his front left leg. Just like with humans, if an animal is injured on one side, they will compensate and come off of that side, which can lead to injuries elsewhere. During my assessment, I palpated his back to see if I could gain a response from him which I did; when I applied a decent amount of pressure, he tried to move away from it so we know there is an issue. In the first part of his treatment, we started with 1,000 Hz for the Unwind Protocol and trigger point release along the back and around the SI joint. By treating along both sides of the spine, you're saturating all of the nerves running off of the spine with photons, which provides all-over pain relief. With this technique you're also hitting several great acupuncture points along the bladder meridian and stimulating the release of serotonin, which encourages relaxation. The Unwind Method is always a good place to start with any veterinary laser treatment. The second part of today's treatment is on the front left leg and I used the Stimulatory sweep frequency of 1-250 Hz, which seems to be the most effective on tendons and joints. However we're delivering a heavy dose to actually create an Inhibitory effect, to reduce pain and inflammation. This is done by simply increasing your laser time on the particular site. We'll treat the whole tendon and the ankle, mainly focusing on the lower part of the leg. This is done best by a very slow scan along the tendon, coming in from all sides. Be sure to include the bottom to ensure the whole tendon is saturated. Around the ankle joints was more of a static treatment on the Ashi points, One minute per point. We finished today's treatment on the upper leg, again using a Stimulatory setting of 50 Hz held static over the saphenous vein for 3-5 minutes to perform photohemotherapy to help increase blood flow and oxygen in the leg. This type of systemic treatment can always be done during a single laser session and would be especially effective if you are using high settings such as 1,000 Hz locally at an injury site. This way you are not treating the same local site with both high and low settings, which should always be avoided so you're not over saturating the tissue when attempting to stimulate. So always keep high and low setting treatment sites separated if you would like to apply photohemotherapy during a laser session.