Thermal imaging

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Sults

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I am thinking of having this done on my boy as i've read lots of positive things about it. But, has anyone had any bad experiences or thinks it is not worth it??

I am wanting to use it more of an 'MOT' check...
 
Just bear in mind it can't "see" deep seated problems, only any near the surface. So as an MOT it has its limitations - I used it to check out a suspected sensitive soles problem and also found heat in the hamstrings and lumbar region.
 
So do you believe that it is only really good for spotting things like muscle soreness rather than tendon/ligaments/bone etc?
 
I'm interested in peoples opinions too. My mare is being scanned next week as she has a strange action and although she has been checked over by vet etc who ruled her sound I would like to check that there is no underlying reason that they may not have registered on the previous checks.
 
I had it done on my mare last year lots of heat spots and was given a list as long as your arm of things that needed to be investigated. by looking at it she looked like she was completely broken. Showed them to my physio and vet both disagreed with a lot of it.
I went with what the vets said and she is now completely sound and it wasn't anything major like what was suggested. I'm sure it is helpful in some cases but in ours it just caused unnecessary worry. Waste of £250 wouldn't bother again
 
LadyLuck1977 said:
I had it done on my mare last year lots of heat spots and was given a list as long as your arm of things that needed to be investigated. by looking at it she looked like she was completely broken. Showed them to my physio and vet both disagreed with a lot of it.
I went with what the vets said and she is now completely sound and it wasn't anything major like what was suggested. I'm sure it is helpful in some cases but in ours it just caused unnecessary worry. Waste of £250 wouldn't bother again
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Can i ask which company you used?
 
Sults said:
So do you believe that it is only really good for spotting things like muscle soreness rather than tendon/ligaments/bone etc?
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It can identify heat in both soft tissue and bone but won't find a problem deep within say the quarters as the muscle is just too dense. Tendons and ligaments in the legs are fine, it will pick up any inflammation in them, there is no thick muscle in the way.
 
I've had some fab experiences with it. It helped my lad's diagnosis with EPSM, as when he was scanned we could see that what we thought was trouble putting weight on was active muscle atrophy (noted by cold muscles). That info helped the vet piece together what was going on.

My friend used it to monitor recovery from tendon injury, and uses it routinely for her eventer during the season to monitor stress on tendons (it's proven that TI can pick up heat in tendons up to three weeks before lameness appears).

Another friend had a horse that wasn't quite right but not lame enough for vet to be able to really help. Scanning picked up a hot spot in the knee (opposite hind was where the vet had been looking!) and with vet's help they then diagnosed her with joint changes in the knee.

My vet is very open to it though - says it can be useful for giving somewhere to start, and is top notch for tendons and muscular problems. Interpretation is tricky though, and as any small problem will naturally be compensated for by other parts of the body, what looks like loads of problems is usually only one problem. So get a decent thermographer in.
 
khalswitz said:
...it can be useful for giving somewhere to start, and is top notch for tendons and muscular problems. Interpretation is tricky though, and as any small problem will naturally be compensated for by other parts of the body, what looks like loads of problems is usually only one problem. So get a decent thermographer in.
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Absolutely this. Would use it in an instant to get an interpretation of somewhere to investigate, would use it for monitoring and absolutely believe it can identify certain types of issue before they're presenting enough for a vet to spot them, and also absolutely agree that it will also show patterns of muscular compensation so very often the 'onion' of issues that can arise from musculoskeletal issues or compensation. It's one of the tools, not THE tool, and when approached like that can be very useful. Lots of vets do use it, lots don't, my personal view is why would you not try a relatively cheap and wholly non-invasive diagnostic tool if it might help you along the road to doing the right thing? No reputable vet would do anything potentially harmful purely based on a TI scan, there would always be further investigation first on what the TI is indicating. Get a good thermographer with good equipment and it certainly can't do any harm.
 
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