Mesotherapy...thoughts? stories? **UPDATE 8/8**

[cswoodlandfairy]

My boy is sore in his lower back. We think it has to do with getting back into shape. The reason the vet thinks this is that as my horse has been out of work for 2 weeks, she body scanned him a week ago and showed reaction, more right side then left, but reacted none the less. However a week later, she body scanned him and his left side was completely normal and mild if any reaction on his right side.

He has been on a three week schedule for chiro/acupuncture work, spent a week or two on Robaxin. He is not lame or off, but shows discomfort so the vet suggested Mesotherapy.

I’ve never heard of it but she has had a lot of success on the horses she has done it for. She said that most horses it works the first time but some have required a second round but she never does more than that. She basically said if it doesn’t work the first time or two it wont work and afterwards would be wasting the money. She also mentioned Kissing spines, which we will xray for while she has him. Since she would be injecting him with B12 and steroids, if we found anything in the xrays she could easily go in with a bigger need (no extra cost) and add some more.

But I was curious about others peoples experience with this process?

[Katy_Watts]

what is ‘body scan’?

[cswoodlandfairy]

[QUOTE=Katy Watts;8780959]
what is ‘body scan’?[/QUOTE]

For my vet/chrio she basically runs her finger/cap down from his poll along the hair line to his rump and back up to see if he reacts to the pressure she puts there. She does a couple of them because of course the first time around he reacts but after a scan or two he doesn’t react and she can narrow down on the areas that are reactive and go from there.

[IPEsq]

I don’t understand why you want to do injections of the soreness is improving? B12 in acupuncture needles is no big deal, but why steroids?

[cswoodlandfairy]

Soreness is improving due to not being ridden and not having the stress on those areas. It was slowly improving with the other therapies we were doing, but its costly as its $150 every 3 weeks ish plus the medications hes on to make it work. This is a one stop shop from what I understand and will give him a couple months to build the muscle correctly without pain and muscle spasms and when the injections wear off (that block the pain) his back would have the correct muscling to support himself and we would eliminate the 3 week chiro visits, drugs and other supplements he is on to make him comfortable

[GoForAGallop]

To answer your actual question:

Yes, I had a round of mesotherapy done on a young OTTB. I went in guns blazing with a bone scan, and her lower back/pelvic area lit up. Vet surmised it was from an old track injury.

She got her SI injury injected along with the mesotherapy, so it’s hard to pinpoint exact results, but I had a significantly more comfortable horse almost immediately, who continued to improve with a solid rehab program.

I just got my 19 year old gelding’s SI injected last week. He is already improving as well, starts back under saddle today. I spoke to the vet about a round of mesotherapy for him as well, but she wanted to do the SI first as a stand-alone, and follow up with the mesotherapy if needed. But I won’t hesitate to do it, based on the results I saw with my mare.

Sounds like you already have it, but make sure that you develop a good physical rehab program as well, to follow up with the injections. There are a lot of things you can do while just handwalking around the property that will help him build up those muscles correctly. Stay off circles for a bit.

[beowulf]

seen mesotherapy make a wonderful difference for many, many horses.

with mesotherapy though, it isn’t a cure - especially since you are addressing a symptom instead of the cause. so IMHO before you do mesotherapy, figure out why her back is sore.

usually, it’s saddle fit. have you had the saddle fitted to her recently? personally, i don’t think a horse should be sore coming back into work. that isn’t normal for me, at least – we give our OTTBs the winter off their first year with us and bring them back into work in the spring, so being sore is a red flag for me.

i find putting them on MSM or cetyl-M after the mesotherapy for a few months makes them ‘recover’ better. with horses post-mesotherapy it’s very important to keep them moving – hacks and hill work for the first 2 weeks for me and then it’s back to regular scheduled programming. i’ll have the chiro out about 3 weeks after injection and see if there’s anything else that needs adjustment.

[cswoodlandfairy]

[QUOTE=beowulf;8781147]
seen mesotherapy make a wonderful difference for many, many horses.

with mesotherapy though, it isn’t a cure - especially since you are addressing a symptom instead of the cause. so IMHO before you do mesotherapy, figure out why her back is sore.

usually, it’s saddle fit. have you had the saddle fitted to her recently? personally, i don’t think a horse should be sore coming back into work. that isn’t normal for me, at least – we give our OTTBs the winter off their first year with us and bring them back into work in the spring, so being sore is a red flag for me.

i find putting them on MSM or cetyl-M after the mesotherapy for a few months makes them ‘recover’ better. with horses post-mesotherapy it’s very important to keep them moving – hacks and hill work for the first 2 weeks for me and then it’s back to regular scheduled programming. i’ll have the chiro out about 3 weeks after injection and see if there’s anything else that needs adjustment.[/QUOTE]

Thanks Beowulf!! I am glad to hear success stories. The saddle was custom for the horse and fits him wonderfully. We think the problem could have stemmed from the previous owners ( I have only had him 3 mths) and their “exercise” program. They claimed he was “fit” but we found out their version of fit was 2 rides a week, so we believe he just got tossed into a program (unknown to us at the time he wasn’t fit) and it was too much too fast. My wallet hurts from the every 3 week appointment and the vet is confident it is a one (maybe two) and done deal and all the other stuff he is on would go away (so long term cheaper).

So his problem stems to not having build the proper muscle as he was going into work and hes sore enough its hard to build it now. So we are basically “starting over” to get him back in shape but the vet hopes this boost will help us get him mentally happy to do it instead of fighting the pain.

[Scribbler]

I’ve googled mesotherapy. It is small amounts of anything, injected into the middle layer of the skin. It is a technique.

I see you are injecting B-12 and steroids. I imagine that the active ingredient here is the steroids.

This is not a vet procedure, I gather, rather something your chiro/accupuncturist is doing?

I am generally familiar with the two common vet methods of dealing with chronic joint problems. One is intramuscular or intravenous injections of things in the glucosamine/ HA family, which gives better delivery to the joints than feeding the supplements. The other is direct injection into the joint, hocks or SI or knee or stifle, of either the supplement or of a steroid like cortisone.

Both of these seem to be quite effective, though I hope I never have to use them on my own horse.

I am not sure how injecting steroids into the skin above the joint would work to help the joint, though? And I am not sure why you are letting the chiropractor do injections, rather than getting vet advice?

I love my equine chiropractor, and her body work on my horse has been very effective. But I have to say, I would not be very receptive to her injecting anything into my horse, because that’s not really her area of training and expertise. If it came down to injections, I would call in the vet and work from xrays, not from just a touch exam “body scan.”

[beowulf]

[QUOTE=Scribbler;8781531]
I’ve googled mesotherapy. It is small amounts of anything, injected into the middle layer of the skin. It is a technique.

I see you are injecting B-12 and steroids. I imagine that the active ingredient here is the steroids.

This is not a vet procedure, I gather, rather something your chiro/accupuncturist is doing?

I am generally familiar with the two common vet methods of dealing with chronic joint problems. One is intramuscular or intravenous injections of things in the glucosamine/ HA family, which gives better delivery to the joints than feeding the supplements. The other is direct injection into the joint, hocks or SI or knee or stifle, of either the supplement or of a steroid like cortisone.

Both of these seem to be quite effective, though I hope I never have to use them on my own horse.

I am not sure how injecting steroids into the skin above the joint would work to help the joint, though? And I am not sure why you are letting the chiropractor do injections, rather than getting vet advice?

I love my equine chiropractor, and her body work on my horse has been very effective. But I have to say, I would not be very receptive to her injecting anything into my horse, because that’s not really her area of training and expertise. If it came down to injections, I would call in the vet and work from xrays, not from just a touch exam “body scan.”[/QUOTE]

Nope - Mesotherapy is a vet procedure to my knowledge. Never seen anyone but a DVM perform it. Lots and lots of needles.

[GoForAGallop]

@Scribbler;8781531

This is not a vet procedure, I gather, rather something your chiro/accupuncturist is doing?

No, my horse was done at a big name clinic by their head DVM. It’s not typically something I’d expect a chiro to do.

The theory behind it (and someone more knowledgable is free to correct, these are just the layperson terms my two vets used) is that it relaxes the muscles around the troubled joint in question enough so that, with proper exercise, the muscles can be reshaped to support the troubled joint/area.

So in my case, where I got the SI injected combined with mesotherapy, the idea was that the mesotherapy would keep her comfortable enough to finish the rehab program that would ultimately result in the proper muscling to support the joint that had been injected.

[cswoodlandfairy]

My vet is also our Chiro/Acupunture…she does it all

As for what GoForAGallop states, that is how my vet explained it to me.

[Ibex]

Did it a few years ago to help heal a muscle adhesion in my mare’s back - it worked wonderfully and would do it again in a second if the situation called for it.

[chism]

[QUOTE=GoForAGallop;8781633]

So in my case, where I got the SI injected combined with mesotherapy, the idea was that the mesotherapy would keep her comfortable enough to finish the rehab program that would ultimately result in the proper muscling to support the joint that had been injected.[/QUOTE]

About 7 or 8 years ago we had an OTTB who sounds very similar to yours. A gate injury had left him slightly tilted in his pelvis, he was stiffer in one direction and struggled with his canter depart on that side. He went along ok for a while, but then he started refusing jumps. A combination of SI injection and mesotherapy did wonders for him, it was full steam ahead and the problem did not recur. THe way my vet explained was that the muscles had become tight and conditioned to compensate for the SI issue, Mesotherapy relaxed the muscles to allow correct, pain free work to build them up properly.

a quick google search turns this up.
http://www.bevet.com/services_and_treatments/services/mesotherapy/

[candico]

I found that injecting Sarapin had the longest lasting and I would saw resolving effect vs acupuncture, mesotherapy with b12, or shockwave which also helped for a short time, but nothing like the Sarapin.

[Scribbler]

[QUOTE=GoForAGallop;8781633]
No, my horse was done at a big name clinic by their head DVM. It’s not typically something I’d expect a chiro to do.

The theory behind it (and someone more knowledgable is free to correct, these are just the layperson terms my two vets used) is that it relaxes the muscles around the troubled joint in question enough so that, with proper exercise, the muscles can be reshaped to support the troubled joint/area.

So in my case, where I got the SI injected combined with mesotherapy, the idea was that the mesotherapy would keep her comfortable enough to finish the rehab program that would ultimately result in the proper muscling to support the joint that had been injected.[/QUOTE]

Ok, interesting! My own back problems are muscle spasms, rather than joint issues, so I totally understand how stopping the spasms one way or another (meds, heat, massage) can work :).

[cswoodlandfairy]

So we (Remi) had the procedure done yesterday and it was really neat to watch, though I am sure he was not thrilled.

He was drugged pretty heavily. He ended up getting nearly 250 injections in his back on the right side alone. They were done 5 needles at a time about half and inch apart starting at the wither area and going to the SI area right side and from his withers to lower back only on the left. The injection was a combination of Triamcinolone, Vit 12, Carbocaine and Sarapin. The vet did a couple localized injections deeper around his spine area for areas that looked like they could potentially be kissing spines related but not 100% kissing spines. (but better safe than sorry).

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=724966754151&l=aaf498420a

My kid was a trooper, and there were only a handful of times we had to use a twitch on top of the drugs when she was in the lower back area (his back bent the needles ironically enough, just to give you an idea of how tight he was).

He’s pretty tender on his back (I dont blame him) and will be for a couple days. For now he “rehab” is as follows:

Week 1: Rest
Week 2: Longe work, long lining, ponying
Week 3: under saddle work with longe warm up, focus on long and low and half seat
Week 4: introducing cavalettis/ground poles
Week 5: regular scheduled program

Of course this is all dependent on how his back feels throughout. But sounds like many have had a big success.

He is on Robaxin until further notice to help support what we are doing and will wean him off as more muscle is built. Vet said that the numbness could last up to 6 months so we shall see, but of course different with every horse.

[CindyCRNA]

@candico

I found that injecting Sarapin had the longest lasting and I would saw resolving effect vs acupuncture, mesotherapy with b12, or shockwave which also helped for a short time, but nothing like the Sarapin.

That’s what my vet used today. My TB has KS that was originally treated with injection, shock wave and rehab. We are 1 1/2 years out in full work and are now needing a touchup. My vet did facet injections and mesotherapy. We had never used it before. I assume the Sarapin is in the mesotherapy? We just did this today so I can’t evaluate.

[cswoodlandfairy]

Yep it was for us! That therapy did wonders. Remi never needed again and actually hasn’t needed any acupuncture or serious chiro since, just a minor adjustment to account for the changes. He’s been doing great with no setbacks! Definitely worth the money for the savings in the long run!

[IPEsq]

We are about to do a second round of shockwave on my horse, and he’s still not right. Although he’s had a major case of the 6-year olds as well…such as throwing a complete HISSY fit trying to get to the new grass sprouting up along the edges of the arena, which of course means a lot of slamming on the brakes, backing up and balking and trying to glue his feet to one spot and bucking in place and all sorts of things that are terrible for his back and hind end. I mean, really!

We’ve treated the deeper tissue and supraspinous ligament with the big guns, but he’s still muscle sore in his back and glutes, so after the shockwave he’s going back on robaxin and my vet is also willing to try mesotherapy if that’s not good enough. Although he doesn’t have the device for the injections, he recommended another vet who could do it. I’ve been asking about doing mesotherapy since September and FINALLY the vets are thinking it might be a good idea. I was already doing monthly acupuncture and chiro etc.

While reading up on mesotherapy, I’ve also read that it can be good for horses with some compromised ROM due to neck arthritis. Anyone use it on the neck??