Laser treaments for tendon injury - any success stories?

clevelandbay

clevelandbay

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On behalf of a friend. Pony injured himself in the field resulting in a cut to his tendon (one of his back legs). He went in to the vets to have it cleaned/scanned etc and was prescribed box rest for 8 weeks. In this time, he got slightly more lame and they re-scanned and found some thickening and scar tissue. After more box rest he went back to the vets for further scans etc and the news was not good, my friend was basically told to turn him away for 12 months and see what happened. There is a lot of scar tissue.

Does anyone know of anyone having success with similar injuries using laser treatments?
 
Yes, I do. My horse had a very severe kick on the front of his leg above the knee which has severely damaged the tendon. I had a physio do a laser session on him and it made it swell a lot. I figured that it had done something but I couldn't pay £60 a session, so I looked on eBay and you can buy cold laser machines reasonably cheaply. However I have a resident engineer so we bought just the diodes and he made me a machine. I used it every night while the horse was eating. Any day I missed, up it came the next day. Every day I used it, the hardness and the swelling reduced. Finally after about nine months it stopped changing and I was able to stop using the machine. I also used it on the bandage scarring on the back of his knee and a patch of white hair that was two inches long ended up less than one quarter of the size.

There is quite a lot of scientific evidence for cold laser for tendon injury, I researched it first.
 
Thanks cptrayes. Can I ask did the horse come right in the end and return to ridden work? My friend has started the laser treatment and is getting it at a reasonable rate from a friend of a friend. I admire your ingenuity in doing it yourself though! x
 
The particular tendon that he injured is not terribly important for the horse's soundness, but saying that, it was completely mashed. The initial diagnosis was a broken leg and there was a split two inches deep! Although he was sound on it quite quickly, the difference that it made to the amount of scar tissue that he ended up with was quite amazing. I would just say to do it as often as she can get it done and don't stop for several months, the improvements just kept on and on. At first he could only bend his knee a little and could not lie down for 4 weeks. After 4 months he could bend it enough to jump and at nine months he managed a full bend of his knee like the other leg. He still has a significant lump above the knee, but it doesn't stop him hunting or jumping 6 foot hedges :D

The key thing for me was that whenever I tried to reduce the length of time or the frequency I was using it, it got noticeably worse, so I'm pretty sure that it was the laser and not just that it was going to improve that much in time anyway.


ps if she wants one of her own a single diode machine is between £60 and £140 all-in on eBay. Google "cold laser". You'd have to use that for quite a long time every day - mine was a 3 diode - but it would do the same job.
 
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cptrayes said:
The particular tendon that he injured is not terribly important for the horse's soundness, but saying that, it was completely mashed. The initial diagnosis was a broken leg and there was a split two inches deep! Although he was sound on it quite quickly, the difference that it made to the amount of scar tissue that he ended up with was quite amazing. I would just say to do it as often as she can get it done and don't stop for several months, the improvements just kept on and on. At first he could only bed his knee a little and could not lie down for 4 weeks. After 4 months he could bend it enough to jump and at nine months he managed a full bend of his knee like the other leg. He still has a significant lump above the knee, but it doesn't stop him hunting or jumping 6 foot hedges :D
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I'd say that is a definate success story then! Thanks so much for taking the time to answer.

My friend's pony is a little cracker, would be such a shame for him to be retired (he's only about 8) which is kind of what the vets have hinted at.

Did your vet reccomend the treatement or was it an option you explored for yourself?
 
The vet agreed the physio and the physio recommended the laser. When I researched it I could see why. Most of the evidence that I could find was for its effect on tendon healing.
 
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