Caring for a Three Legged Dog or Cat
Tripawds is your home to learn how to care for a three legged dog or cat, with answers about dog leg amputation, and cat amputation recovery from many years of member experiences.
Join The Tripawds Community
Learn how to help three legged dogs and cats in the forums below. Browse and search as a guest or register for free and get full member benefits:
Instant post approval.
Private messages to members.
Subscribe to favorite topics.
Live Chat and much more!
Register
Log In
Members
Add Topic
Offline
I was just wondering if anyone ever used cold laser therapy to help speed up the healing process after surgery? I’ve heard great things about this. I’m going to ask my vet this question come Thursday.
Hey Paul,
We have heard both good and not so good things about it. Rehab practitioners have told us that it can greatly speed up post-op healing, but as for healing long term chronic issues, it's hit and miss. Here is what Dr. Waldman told us in this radio interview:
Cold Laser Use fro Chronic Pain:
‹maggie› What about cold laser? And yes, my chiro is a vet – who also does acupuncture and cold laser – among other modalities.
‹Dr.Waldman› Cold laser is OK, not great. we have one and use most successfully for acute trauma or wounds. For chronic pain like back or arthritis, i don't see a big improvement and sometimes I think it makes them worse. you can stimulate acupoints iwth the laser though as an alternative
It's important to find a practitioner who is skilled at doing this, not just to make sure you're getting your money's worth, but burns are one potential issue. Many folks have had experience with it, I'm sure they'll chime in.
Tripawds Founders Jim and Rene
tripawds.com | tripawds.org | bemoredog.net | triday.pet
I'm currently using it on my dog. My surgeon believes it is only helpful early on to help with granulation tissue and doesn't believe it is very useful after that. However, my regular vet uses it even after the bed of granulation tissue has formed. She has seen remarkable improvement with it and so we are now using it on my dog who has a wound about 5" long that wraps about 50% of the way around his leg. My vet showed me pics of before and after and how quickly the wounds healed. It is not difficult to do at all, nor uncomfortable for the dog. According to my vet you need to use it frequently, so we are using it 3x's a week. From what I understand it basically draws blood to the area to speed healing. (I have also used it on an arthritic dog and have definitely seen some benefit from it with that - but like acupuncture you have to do it more frequently at first and then follow-up about every 3 weeks. It isn't a permanent fix in this case.)
We shall see what happens. The wound has been there a month so far, they used laser initially but then stopped. The surgeon says it will still take months, and months, and months to heal. My regular vet thinks we should have this wound healed in about a month. I'm hoping she is right!
Guess I should add this is an open wound I'm dealing with. If it is a stitched wound I don't know if it would help or not. Those tend to heal pretty quickly anyway and my regular vet has never suggested it for that on a regular basis. I do know, however, that she uses it once right after she closes an incision to speed healing.
I hope so too Duke! When I took Bandit to Pt, the therapist did laser therapy on his leg and on his back (to help relieve muscle tension). The therapist kept telling me good things about Cold laser therapy and how it helps improve circulation etc etc. This is why I was wondering if Cold therapy would help Bandit after his surgery.
1 Guest(s)
