Ceramic Therapy Introduction Logistics

[AAHunterGal]

I would like to get my mare into a ceramic therapy (I bought the SmartPak brand) for her overnight blanket. I’ve read widely about the introductory period, but logistics wise I’m not able to go out, put it on her, wait 2-3 hours, then take it off, and do it for days at a time and increase by an hour each day - nor is there anyone at the barn who can make it happen.

How have folks in a similar situation handled the intro period? Has anyone just jumped in and put it on overnight/for longer periods with no ill effects?

I’ve tried to google and look for any anecdotes about bad reactions or ill effects, but haven’t turned any up so far.

[Amy3996]

I accidentally went cold turkey introducing it to my OTTB gelding last winter when I mistakenly grabbed my 100g SmartTherapy liner instead of the other non-ceramic liner. He started licking/chewing/yawning within 10-15 minutes of wearing it. I left it on him overnight that night with no issues. In fact, he wore it almost 24/7 for the coldest parts of the winter and seemed to love it.

If you have a particularly sensitive horse or one with underlying muscle conditions (PSSM, etc), I might try to do a more gradual intro. Otherwise, not that big a deal IMO.

[Pally]

I am pretty sure I have seen people pretty much throw a BOT mesh sheet on for the night without a lot of build up, sans obvious ill effects. That said, at least with BOT brand, I find the heating effects are most prominent when they are brand new. So if your horse is prone to run a little warm, or it’s this time of year when we’re all like “Is it cold or hot? I can’t tell.” you want to make sure you aren’t inadvertently cooking your horse by using the ceramic on a “borderline for blankets” temp. In the meantime, you can do a little introducing it while you do other stuff during your barn time, like during grooming or while you clean tack.

Now, human anecdote… I can tell you when I bought the socks, I did do a bit of build up, but definitely wasn’t willing to wake up in the middle of the night to remove them, so soon tried sleeping in them. The ankle with the old injuries felt amazing! Then I almost fell over when I stepped onto the “good” ankle, it was so loose! But TBF I have hypermobility and those sit over the joints (paralleling the quick wraps or hock wraps for horses, not the blanket that sits over big muscles. I had no issues with my T-shirt or “hot pants”).

[trakehners]

I am one of those people who has thrown my SmartTherapy mesh sheet on my horse overnight (last night, ha) with minimal buildup and had no issues (it was cold and windy and rainy here so I wasn’t too concerned about him overheating in his stall with it) unless you count making him feel so good that he went out into the field today, tore around three acres of pasture within twenty minutes of being turned out, and flung off the boot that he was wearing to protect the hoof that he threw a shoe on yesterday

I will add the caveat that I’ve been using the sheet on him pretty much every time I’ve been out at the barn since I got it roughly a month ago—he just had his SI injected a couple of weeks ago and it was recommended that I start using that sort of sheet on him as part of managing that/loosening up and strengthening his topline—so he’s been wearing it for anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour+ at least a few times a week for that long, but he was just fine when I went out today after throwing him in the deep end with it. Usually I’ll groom his body, put the sheet on him while I do his feet and get myself and my tack together, ride him, and then let him wear it for another 15 minutes to half hour after we’re done riding (once he’s not sweaty/hot anymore) before I take it off and clean him up. He is also a sensitive snowflake about literally everything so if there was any sort of adverse response to wearing it, he would tell me, but so far his reaction seems to be the exact opposite.

[RAyers]

Hmmmmm, given that the ceramics are titania (titanium dioxide), do you guys get warm etc in rooms with white paint (titanium dioxide is what makes paint white) or if you have white tattoos, or use sunscreens and cosmetics?

Asking as one who does research using titanium oxides.

[TooManyTBs]

I have the Smart Therapy mesh sheet and I immediately threw it on my horse overnight with no build up. I use it in the trailer and the night before shows. Still not sure if it actually does anything more than a stable sheet, but I’ve had no issues with it. I got it more for the fact that I could keep his back slightly warm, while the mesh sides keep him from overheating.

[Jackie_Cochran]

I don’t have the science to back any of this up, just empirical evidence.

However I gave my hopefully soon daughter-in-law a BOT mattress pad. My son says she LOVES how it helps her aches and pains (she runs 10 miles a day). She has a PHd in Physics so is not an uneducated ignoramus about the scientific method.

Both me and my husband are in our seventies. We have various pains in many joints. The medicines and therapies prescribed by our MDs do not work very well on us. The BOT and Fenwick stuff really helps us, it relieves our pains, when we wrench a joint it seems to help the joint heal a bit quicker than the normal 6 weeks, and we would be living in misery from our age related/body wearing out pains without the far-infrared therapy fabrics.

Without this stuff we both would be either attacking our stomachs with a lot of aspirin or wrecking our livers with the other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medicines.

The elderly school horse (28 year old Appendix QH with controlled navicular disease) I ride for my lessons agrees with me about all the BOT and Fenwick stuff I put on the horses. Without his BOT and Fenwick boots/wraps I put on him this horse just refuses to extend his walk, will not trot over a pole, and is extremely reluctant to move out at the trot even using my legs, spurs, or popping him with my crop. With them on he will move out without many leg aids and keep going at the speed I want without too much work from me. Lately, after two years of refusing to trot over poles, he has consented to trot over ground poles again under his other rider, and after a few months of refusing to take his right lead (his worst foot) he has started taking the right lead again at the canter.

The elderly Arab-Welsh mare in her late twenties that I ride has arthritis, we just walk around the ring. I can get a decent ride at the walk with no or just a little bit of flinching if she wears her BOT and Fenwick boots/wraps, without them she flinches deeply every step and I cut the ride short. One ride started without the stuff on her lower legs, she gave me a great amount of flinching, her owner then got her various boots, put them on, and I could continue my ride without her flinching deeply every single step. That mare BELIEVES in the efficacy of these products.

Your point about the titanium dioxide being used with all these different products may explain why my body does not want me to use them. Too much heat for too long a time makes the symptoms of my MS MUCH WORSE, as in I start staggering, have difficulty standing, and my already horrendous balance gets a lot worse. The last thing I need to do is slather a mineral that reflects my body heat back onto my body for extended periods of time.

Thank you for listing all the products types that use the titanium dioxide so I can avoid all of them as much as possible. It is so easy to take the therapeutic fabrics off my body when my body says enough, it would be much harder to get the stuff off my skin. This might be the reason why my body does NOT want me to use cosmetics or sun screen, this started maybe 40 years ago when my undiagnosed MS got worse and worse. Come to think of it that was the last time I lived in a room painted white.

Yep, all I have is empirical evidence, and my body is much happier and I can keep elderly lame horses serviceably sound for light riding. These therapeutic fabrics do not cure, they do not help everything, but they can make life a lot less physically painful. Unfortunately they do raise my core body temperature so I cannot wear them as much as I would like to wear them.

[RAyers]

Do you see white cars? Have anything painted white anywhere? Do you have any orthopedic hardware? Use anything that has titanium alloy, like eye glass frames, fly, use titanium shoes on your horse or titanium bits? Titania is ubiquitous in the environment. Titanium only exists as a metal covered in titania because titantium basically can’t exist as a unoxidized element.

Thus, I suggest avoiding anything and everything made out of titanium.

[Jackie_Cochran]

You have a good point about white cars. Maybe I better start negotiating with my husband to take me riding in the dark gray van rather than the white van. Thank you for pointing this out, I will report back if it makes a difference in my riding, if my husband consents to use his business vehicle to take me riding.

I do use titanium bits on the horses I ride. These horses have made it CLEAR that they greatly prefer me using the titanium bits and once I ride them several times in my titanium bits these lesson horses “go on strike” as obedient lesson horses when they are put back into stainless steel bits. Luckily I went crazy buying the cheaper titanium coated bits back when they are available and I gave them to my riding stables when I got into the much-better-for-my-handicapped-hands Fager titanium bits. This particular reaction has happened with 5 to 6 of the lesson horses I’ve ridden with the titanium bits.

I do have titanium frames for my eyeglasses. I guess next pair I better look at the cheaper plastic frames, which will save me a lot of money.

I am now wondering how much influence titania has on keeping the Earth warm enough for amphibian, reptilian, avian and mammalian life, and how much it adds to the global increase in temperatures. The computer models do not seem to have this as a variable in their future projections, and it might increase the accuracy of the projections if they start taking the ubiquity of titania in our environment into account.

Fortunately distance seems to decrease the heat effect from the titania. When these fabrics are against my skin I get much more of the inherent heating effect. The bits are far enough from my hands when I ride so they do not seem to effect me, neither do the boots. However if I ever dare to wear any of these therapeutic fabrics while I ride all of a sudden my hands are NOT SUITABLE for contact as far as the horses are concerned, so I often ride in pain. Any increase in my core body temperature makes my MS symptoms much worse, which is why I have to wear an ice vest in the summer when I ride and why I have to stay sort of cold when I ride in the winter and NEVER wear the BOT or Fenwick stuff on my body when I ride.

Thank you RAyers for pointing out additional stuff that may be making my MS symptoms worse! Every little bit helps. And my husband just agreed to take me riding in his dark grey mini-van! Maybe it will help me ride the horses better.

[vxf111]

Only some of the products have the majik. It’s the majik that does the work, silly. Not the science

[vxf111]

IME experience titanium bits are significantly lighter than traditional bits. I suspect the reason horses go differently in them has more to do with that than with the incremental increase in warmth caused by reflection from the titanium.

[Jackie_Cochran]

They are most definitely lighter than bits made of other metals. I was having difficulties years ago lifting my double bridle with the stainless steel bits up to the horse’s mouth, once I changed to the titanium double bridle bits I have no difficulties getting the bits up to the horse’s mouth.

My completely unproven hypothesis comes from the statement that titanium is biologically inert. Maybe the horses have an allergy to a component in stainless steel, which could cause immune cells to activate in the mouth and inflame the rather thin layer of skin in the horse’s mouth somewhat. No inflammation could make the mouth feel better and less sensitive to the presence and movements of the bits.

The increase of temperature of these bits makes warming the bits up in the dead of winter a lot easier. As far as I can tell the bits just heat up to the temperature within the horse’s mouth. In the summer I keep the bits out of the sunlight so they don’t heat up too much.

[vxf111]

Did you SEE inflammation in your horse’s mouths? That seems like kind of a logical leap. I don’t know that I would jump to the conclusion that inflammation was being caused by regular old stainless steel bits simply because your horse prefers the titanium. My horse likes the happy mouth. It’s light. That’s why he likes it. Not because he had an inflammatory response to the stainless steel I tried before.

I also really don’t know that the difference in temperature could make a meaningful difference on horse performance. I really doubt that. Within 30 seconds to a minute of being in a horse’s mouth any metal bit is going to be warmed and the fact that one might get warmer ever so slightly quicker seems… not meaningful in the grand scheme of things.

I dunno… it seems like you WANT to think there’s some complex magic at play so you’re reasoning backwards to find a reason that might be. The bits are lighter. I suspect that’s all the magic there is.

There’s certainly nothing wrong with using those bits if you like them.

I just suspect it’s the lightness and/or the shape of the bits that the horses prefer and nothing having to do with the fact the fact that they’re titanium (except to the extent that allows them to be lighter).

The problem with these sort of anecdotal stories is that anecdotes aren’t data. They’re not blind. And they’re not tested against a control. It’s really unscientific. To then try to find a scientific explanation post hoc doesn’t make an anecdote data.

That being said, if your horse likes a bit I say go for it. Doesn’t matter what the reason is. He likes it, he likes it. All good.

[Rackonteur]

@Jackie_Cochran

Fortunately distance seems to decrease the heat effect from the titania. When these fabrics are against my skin I get much more of the inherent heating effect. The bits are far enough from my hands when I ride so they do not seem to effect me, neither do the boots. However if I ever dare to wear any of these therapeutic fabrics while I ride all of a sudden my hands are NOT SUITABLE for contact as far as the horses are concerned,

@vxf111

IME experience titanium bits are significantly lighter than traditional bits. I suspect the reason horses go differently in them has more to do with that than with the incremental increase in warmth caused by reflection from the titanium.

OK, now i’m worried about the horses’ mouths with titanium bits. What keeps the bits from burning the horses’ mouths? I mean, presumably they don’t, since the horses love them. But what keeps them from overheating?

[TimeForAHorse]

Thermodynamics? I don’t think there’s any sort of exothermic reaction going on between titanium and horsey slobber or anything; there’s no reason the bits would get any warmer than the horse’s mouth is anyway - they might just come to thermal equilibrium a little faster than something like stainless. They aren’t generating heat.

[Jackie_Cochran]

In the horse’s mouths the heat reflection would be limited to the temperature in the horse’s mouths.

I have been using either titanium coated bits (heavier than pure titanium) and titanium mouthpiece bits for several years now. Two of the horses I’ve ridden could get rather expressive if they do not like anything about the bit (gaping, head flinging, refusal to take contact). With the titanium bits they did object to bits whose mouthpieces these horses did not approve of, but when I used a titanium bit with a mouthpiece the horse approved of I had no more problems. The reflection of heat of the titanium bit does not seem to be a problem when the bit is in the horse’s mouth.

[Rackonteur]

I honestly wish my dad were alive to read all this. He knew all about thermodynamics. I obviously know nothing! lol (and yes, he would be laughing with me, at me, right now!)

[Jackie_Cochran]

When I started with titanium bits, based on what I read about them in the COTH Forum years ago, my MS was at the point that during the heat of the summer the horses started objecting to my contact with regular stainless steel bits. I got a reprieve from this when I got the Wellep bit (“medical grade” stainless steel), but the horses made it clear that I was on parole and if my hands got worse they would tell me about it and I would ride with loose reins.

They simply prefer titanium bits. Since I got the titanium bits I have not had to use a bitless bridle in the hottest part of the summer. I regularly ask my riding teachers if these lesson horses are objecting to the bit at all and 99% of the time my teachers say the horses look happy with my contact. The rare times the horses are not happy, like when I wear some of the BOT stuff, I let the reins sag and everybody gets happier, with the horses accepting my hands aids when I tweak the sagging reins at the proper time in the horse’s stride.

I completely depend on the good will of these horses when I ride because with my disabilities there really is not much that I can do if the horse decides it wants me off of its back. I work at keeping these horses content when I ride them.

[AAHunterGal]

Hey all! Trying to get my thread back on track, lol. I just used a ceramic therapy pun.

Does anyone else have any stories/anecdotes to share positive/negative about starting these products cold turkey on your horse?

[Jackie_Cochran]

My apologies.

I would like to know about starting these products cold turkey too. One reason I never got a lesson horse a BOT turnout blanket was because it just looked like too much work for the people working in the stables to introduce the blanket gradually, and I am too weak to put on the blankets myself.