What is it?
Cold Laser Therapy is a topical treatment used to manage a wide variety of painful inflammatory conditions in both animals and people. It is often referred to as “adjunctive” or “complementary” therapy as it tends to work best in combination with other medical treatments.
How does it work?
Cold Laser Therapy works through wavelengths of light that are concentrated into an area of inflammation/pain. The light waves enter the damaged cells and cause them to increase their metabolism and create products that are needed for tissue to heal. Due to the fact that lasers use light wavelengths to create an anti-inflammatory healing effect, another term used to describe this therapy is “Phototherapy”. In summary, laser therapy is used to speed healing, reduce inflammation, and reduce pain safely and effectively.
How can it help my pet?
Laser therapy can be safely used in a wide variety of conditions in our pets. The only situations where we can’t use laser therapy occur in cases of cancer where we do not want to encourage increased cell production. Laser therapy can also be used safely on patients with underlying medical conditions or our more elderly patients that may not handle oral medications well. This allows us to use antibiotics or anti-inflammatory/pain medications at lower doses or for a decreased length of time to treat many conditions which cause discomfort and pain.
Another great application for laser therapy is post-operatively. By using the laser on incision lines after surgery, we encourage decreased healing times and decreased pain/inflammation for our pets post-op. This includes spays, neuters, dental extractions and orthopaedic surgeries (cruciate repairs, luxating patella repairs, bone fractures, etc). This laser treatment is also very helpful after declawing surgery in our feline patients as it helps to manage inflammation and pain after amputations.
The following diagram shows some of the common conditions encountered in our canine and feline friends that can be effectively treated with Laser Therapy:
Laser Therapy can be used in almost every situation to naturally help to relieve our pets of pain and inflammation. Contact our veterinarians today to discuss whether or not your pet may benefit from laser therapy!