When your pet is uncomfortable or in pain, alleviating his distress is more important than anything else. Laser therapy for pets can help in many cases by promoting healing and reducing inflammation and pain. This increasingly popular treatment option goes by many names: cold laser therapy or low-level laser therapy (LLLT).
Cold Laser Therapy or Low Level Laser Therapy (LLLT) is a treatment that utilizes specific wavelengths of light to interact with tissue and is thought to help accelerate the healing process. It can be used on patients who suffer from a variety of acute and chronic conditions in order to help eliminate pain, swelling, reduce spasms and increase functionality.
What Is Laser Therapy
The principle of laser therapy (which works for both pets and people) is that the laser fires photons, or light energy, at the tissue in the damaged area. These photons work at the cellular (mitochondrial) level, leading to a process called “photobiological regulation”. Photoorganisms regulate the production of ATP, which is the fuel needed to improve the function of damaged cells and accelerate their regeneration. This means less inflammation, less pain, and faster healing for your pet.
Benefits of Laser Therapy for Pets
Many canine health issues have responded positively to laser therapy. Therapeutic laser is used to treat a myriad of conditions, including osteoarthritis, intervertebral disc disease, lick granuloma, cellulitis, and others. Any place we find inflammation and/or pain, we can apply the principle of photobiomodulation. Pets laser therapy reduces pain and inflammation and promotes the healing of many tissues in the body, including skin, ears, gums, muscles and tendons. Veterinarians are also using laser therapy for dogs as part of their multimodal approach to address ear infections, which often recur or become chronic.
Laser therapy for pets can also help with
- Surgical wound healing
- Traumatic wound healing
- Increasing the metabolism of specific tissues
- Reducing the formation of scar tissue
- Immunoregulation
- Improving nerve function and nerve regeneration
- Releasing of painful trigger points
- Speeding the healing of infections
How Does Laser Therapy Work
Cold lasers are handheld devices often the size of a flashlight. The laser is placed directly over the injured area for 30 seconds to several minutes, depending on the size of the area being treated and the dose provided by the cold laser unit.
Therapeutic laser therapy uses light energy, which is cold or low-level, to work its “magic.” Light used at specific frequencies causes a physiological change at the cellular level. These changes can include replenishing adenosine triphosphate (ATP, the molecule that carries energy in the cells of every living being), reducing inflammation and decreasing pain transmission.
Using Pets Laser Therapy With Other Treatments
Laser therapy for pets can be a big part of a multimodal pain management program. It can be paired with acupuncture, massage, chiropractic care and hydrotherapy, as well as with medications and supplements. Because laser therapy increases the comfort and mobility of the pet with relatively few side effects.
Contraindications of Pets Laser Therapy
A therapeutic laser shouldn’t be used in certain cases. For instance, applying a laser over a tumor site could accelerate the tumor growth. If a cancer has metastasized, meaning it’s spread to other areas, laser therapy should not be used, as there is a possibility of targeting cancer cells which could then accelerate the cancer growth. It also shouldn’t be used over the uterus of pets that’s pregnant, either.
How long do the benefits of pets laser therapy typically last?
It depends on what you’re using it for, but most of the time, we’re going to be using it for something like arthritis. We generally start out doing the procedure as far as the cold laser therapy about every few days for the first couple of weeks. So your dog is usually in here at least every other day, or at least a couple of times a week to help get started. But then we found that once we can get the inflammation under control, laser therapy once a week, or even down to once a month, can still be beneficial. Learn more.
