Equine thermography - views anyone?

[gelderlander]

A friend called in yesterday and showed me images she had had taken by an equine thermographer on her intermittently lame mare, which has been xrayed but not scanned. Apparently when she showed the results to her vet, she was rather dismissive of the procedure and didn't study the results in any great detail. Has anyone had any experience of thermography as a diagnostic tool?

 

[abercrombie&titch]

yes - it was used on my gelding who was at worst only 2/10 lame, very variable on which leg, sometimes got worse with exercise, sometimes better and certainly not ever lame enough to nerve block and really no idea where to start xraying! he had a full body thermography session - it showed up differences in his knees, which we then xrayed and found some evidence of arthritic changes - a series of cartrophen injections and he is as sound as can be.

 

[JillA]

Yes, I did and it showed up not only soreness in his soles (which was what I was investigating) but also sore hamstrings and over his lumbar region. My vet was quite dismissive which I find hard to understand, I would have thought it was a useful diagnostic tool, within the limitation that it can only show inflammation near the surface.

 

[wench]

Useful tool, and cheap to have the whole horse done. It has shown up some interesting results on my horses, and has always been backed up by what physios/xrays had to say

 

[Birker2020]

Useful tool, and cheap to have the whole horse done. It has shown up some interesting results on my horses, and has always been backed up by what physios/xrays had to say

My physio is quite dismissive of them too. Not sure why, will have to ask. I think its because over compensation spots will also show up, which could cause conflicting results.

 

[gunnergundog]

Vets I think are dismissive as there are so many variables that can effect the output....not least the ambient temperature on the day on which the scan takes place! I know some thermographers who will only work within a quite narrow temperature range.

Also, how the horse has been loading its weight prior to the scan can impact things and is it the cold areas or the hot areas that are significant on the output? There is one thermographer at least who sends the output to someone in USA for the interpretation.