Shockwave Therapy

What is Shockwave Therapy for Horses? How Does it Work?

Shockwave therapy (ESWT) is an accepted veterinary technology for treating musculoskeletal and soft tissue problems in horses. When blood flow increases and new blood vessels grow, natural healing also begins. This improves the speed and quality of tendons, ligament, and eventually bone healing. Shockwave is also excellent to aid in wound healing and can dramatically improve the time of recovery.

Maintenance For the Equine Athlete

When it comes to sport horse maintenance, Shockwave especially has a place in performance horse protocols. These equine athletes push the limits with training likewise to their human counterparts, and need therapy from time to time to maintain training goals.

Movement Medicine

Extracorporeal Shockwave Therapy (ESWT) is a method of applying energy waves to hard or soft tissue in a particular area of the body. ESWT is a non-invasive procedure that utilizes the production of acoustic sound waves to produce high pressure waves that are focused on a point of tissue, muscle, fascia, and bone to stimulate blood flow which promotes healing. The treatment is targeted to a specific area of the body and helps reduce the need for pain medications.

Shockwave therapy results an increase in blood flow, direct cellular effects, activation of osteogenic factors (the process of laying down new bone) and a direct analgesic (pain relieving) effect.

One of the early uses of Shockwave Therapy was to treat people who had painful kidney stones. Developed for human use in breaking up these kidney stones, the technique has also been adopted by veterinarians. “Extracorporeal” refers to the fact that the treatment is given from outside the horse’s body, in contrast to oral medications, injections, or surgery that are considered more invasive. Another advantage of Shockwave is the variety of treatment levels that can be adjusted to meet your horse’s specific rehabilitation or injury protocol needs.

Common Horse Injuries That Can Benefit from Shockwave Therapy:

Studies have shown that it reduces inflammation, additionally reducing pain as it promotes healing. It appears to be especially effective where ligaments attach to bone, especially where there is an arthritis problem.  ESWT has been used generally to treat:

If you feel your horse may benefit from Shockwave Therapy or your athlete has also sustained a training or performance injury, please contact us to schedule an appointment. Shockwave is a very diverse treatment to deliver results and aid in your horse’s recovery time.