Shock Wave Therapy for Pain Relief and Healing

In a recently completed study involving navicular cases, Byron found lameness in horses undergoing extracorporeal shock wave therapy (ESWT) treatment averaged improvement of about one lameness grade.
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Take a lame horse, inject him with stem cells or cells from a pig’s bladder lining, zap him with extracorporeal shock waves, and what do you get? That’s just one of several research projects involving extracorporeal shock wave therapy (ESWT) that are underway or have been recently completed. Following are reports of some recent research using ESWT to help you work with your veterinarian to decide if this treatment is right for your horse.

Refresher Course

"ESWT utilizes high-pressure sound waves focused at a very small, specific site within the body to aid healing of muscular, tendon, and bone conditions," explains Scott McClure, DVM, PhD (veterinary physiology), Dipl. ACVS, assistant professor in the Department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences at Iowa State University.

Based on the same technology whereby lithotripsy breaks up kidney stones in humans, ESWT has been applied in horses to stimulate blood flow and bone remodeling, and to repair ligaments. "The pressure waves can be focused at tissue within the body; the tissue between the surface and focal point is not affected," McClure says

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Marcia King is an award-winning freelance writer based in Ohio who specializes in equine, canine, and feline veterinary topics. She’s schooled in hunt seat, dressage, and Western pleasure.

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