My Appendix gelding who usually gets cortisone injections once a year for back/spine pain, got shock wave therapy yesterday instead; anyone have any positive/negative experience with it?
The only negative I’ve experienced is that for me, with things like backs, I haven’t found the benefit to be worth the expense–not long lasting enough at all for the ones that benefit from steroid injections. For other purposes, I like it better. And not that I don’t like shockwave for backs, but it’s so expensive that it’s just not repeatable enough (sometimes I think the benefit lasts weeks, at most) and I’d rather put that money into an annual injection.
I wondered about how long the effects of it lasts, but my vet said around as long as the cortisone shots. I’ll just have to wait and see–can always go back to the shots if I need to. Cost me $200 for the session–would have to pull my receipts out of storage to see what I was paying for injections. Thank you for your feedback.
Oh wow, whenever I’ve done a decent section of the back or sacrum, the cost for shockwave has been more like $800+
My horse is sore at the base of his withers–about a 7" or 8" span.
If you’re referring to MagnaWave therapy, or something similar, I’ve paid as little as $60 per 30-45 minute session. I guess I’m lucky?
Nope–this was extracorporeal shockwaves (high pressure waves)-
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Do you know how many shocks that was for? Last time I had a back done it was around $200 plus farm call.
When I had a back done, it was an initial 3 treatments, 7-10 days apart each, and we did another round at 6 months, though that was more just in case/prevention as the horse did not palpate sore at that time.
I’ve had a very positive experience with shockwave in the LS/SI areas. I went this route because I had reason to believe the chronic pain issue was related to scar tissue from a long ago injury. Long story. It was still a guess that it would be more effective than alternatives (SI joint injections, mesotherapy).
I did a series of 3 treatments at about 4 week intervals (~$300 each), then did a 4th treatment about 6 months after that. The first 2 treatments had max effect for about 2 weeks, then started to slowly wear off, but each time, the baseline was better than before. The third treatment probably was probably maximally effective for 1-2 months. By 6 months, we’d plateaued, but it was still much better than it had been. So I got one more treatment and I’m not sure that one did much. So we may not be able to get much use out of more treatments.
Between the 1st and 4th treatment, I was able to start putting changes on him, and had to get a new saddle b/c his topline changed substantially. The pain seems more localized to the LS now than diffuse across the whole LS/SI area, and my most recent saddle adjustments seem to have inched us even closer to him being virtually pain-free.
So of course he’s gone out and injured something else in the last week. :mad:
2000 (1000 each with 2 different probes)
Oh jeez, that’s what mine was–I wonder why it cost you so much more?? All three visits combined w/ farm call was around $900.
So you did 2000 pulses a visit for 3 visits to total $900? Wow. Just the shockwave fee for 2000 pulses from my vet was $780. Not including call charge, exam, sedation, etc.
My gelding had 4000 pulses at setting/intensity level 11 for the $200.
Where are you in CO? My vet comes up from Ft Collins to Cheyenne. Her trip charges are reasonable. She charges me $95, local vet coming 15 miles to my place charges $75…
I’m about an hour south of Ft Collins. My vet comes from CSU, but in the past using a local vet cost the same for shockwave. I’ll have to check which probes they use. Maybe that is the difference? I want to say that when I had to use the local vet to shockwave a splint it was more like $1000 across two visits but it was a very small area so I don’t think we did as many shocks, and definitely not as deep.
But shoot, I pay enough in other bodywork for this horse (at $85-150 a session depending on what it is) that if I could have a $200 shockwave session, that might really help him maintain better as we continue to build strength (he has a knack for coming up creative ways to get out of getting fit). It would also be an interesting option since he had an adverse reaction to NSAIDs this spring that were given in conjunction with a routine steroid injection.
And as an aside, CSU recently upped their call charge to me from $85 to $150 :eek:. But we do love my CSU sports vet who has been the only one to really figure out this horse.
You have to use the vets that do the best by your horse(s). I can’t use my Ft Collins vet for emergencies–have to use the local clinic for them, but for anything I can schedule in advance I do. She also promotes her clients finding best price for RX’s online and she will OK the script for them–doesn’t want any animal to go without because the price. She is wonderful with my hinny who has a vet/needle phobia–works with him instead of trying to overpower him.
