3 November 2021

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Why Use Laser Therapy to Treat Your Pet?

While some pet illnesses and conditions respond to simple treatments, others need more complex solutions. Chronic conditions, recurring illnesses and hard-to-heal wounds might need long-term care with a range of different treatments.

In some cases, vets use laser therapy as part of a holistic treatment plan. The vet uses a specialised laser to target key body areas. How will laser therapy help your pet?

Reduce pain and inflammation

Pain management in pets can be difficult. If your pet has a chronic condition such as osteoarthritis or a raw post-surgical wound, then you need to find an effective way to make it feel more comfortable. You don’t want your pet to be in pain or discomfort.

However, pain medications can take time to work. Their effects wear off after a period of time. Some pets also don’t like to take tablets or medicines, making it hard to give them the help they need.

Laser therapy helps manage pain and inflammation. This treatment creates a set of photochemical reactions in the body that reduce pain and swelling. Pets usually get immediate relief after one short treatment.

Plus, over time, their bodies utilise the beneficial effects of this light therapy. The laser accelerates natural healing processes, so your pet’s recovery or general pain management also gets a longer-term boost. Treatable conditions take less time to fix, and long-term conditions get a useful pain management tool that could reduce your pet’s dependence on medications.

Kickstart treatment on difficult cases

Sometimes, pets develop problems that are technically easy to treat. For example, if a dog gets an external ear infection, then a vet can often clean out the ear, treat immediate damage and prescribe medications for any underlying problem.

However, these otitis infections are often troublesome. If a dog’s ear is swollen and painful, then it won’t want anyone to touch the area at all. Cleaning and topical treatments might cause the dog too much pain. Plus, excessive swelling can make it hard for a vet to see inside the ear to diagnose the cause of the infection.

Laser therapy can kickstart recovery and facilitate treatment in these difficult cases. For example, a dog with a severe otitis ear infection would get immediate relief from this treatment. Pain levels would decrease and the swelling would start to go down.

Once the dog feels more comfortable, they are more likely to tolerate touch and treatments to the ear. A cleaning will be less painful, and the vet can get the clearance they need to investigate the problem.

Get a stress-free treatment

Even vet-friendly pets find it hard to manage treatments if they are in pain or discomfort. Some might become aggressive or refuse to cooperate. In both cases, pets often become very stressed.

It isn’t easy to treat a pet that is overly upset. Even safe restraining techniques can make matters worse. In some cases, pets need to be anaesthetised to get them into a treatable state.

Laser therapy is a useful tool here. This is a non-invasive treatment — vets don’t even need to touch their patients during a session, so they won’t have to hurt or stress pets by touching painful areas during the therapy. The light does the work for them.

Pets often come to like laser therapy. This is a calm and soothing process that doesn’t typically last more than a few minutes at a time. Pets get immediate relief and quickly learn that the therapy doesn’t hurt. Once they know it helps, they’ll be much calmer at subsequent treatment visits.

To find out more about laser therapy and when it can be beneficial, contact Arundel Veterinary Surgery. We have two leading-edge Class 4 K lasers on site for both our own patients and referrals from other clinics.