Hi everyone!
Curious as if anyone has experience with either Shockwave/Injections for lower lumbar/SI issues? Doing chiro and a ton of ground work paired with an Equiband to focus on topline.
We are going to do Shockwave paired with Chiro, get him fit and then see how it holds. If it doesn’t look great after that we will do injections.
Just looking for people who have done either before and what the result was,
Thanks!
My vet wouldn’t inject (he just doesn’t do it), but he did do 1200 Shockwave pulses on each side. I think my horse is still hock/stifle sore, so I can’t say that it truly helped or not. It was pricey!
I have a horse that we’ve been building strength with, but she had recurring back soreness that we couldn’t quite kick. It was likely due to her building muscle, but even with time off, massage, chiro, acupuncture, laser, it kept coming back. Shockwave seemed to break the cycle and she felt (and continues to feel) incredible afterwards. I think we’re going on month 2? 3? She doesn’t have any actual diagnosed problems with her back (kissing spine, other arthritis, etc), but has some diagnosed hind limb lameness. I think the shockwave helped to relax everything in her back so she could use herself correctly again and continue to get stronger.
Just out of curiosity, as my older gelding has some chronic SI soreness - how much generally is shockwave? I’ve never had it done before.
I believe I paid ~$700 for shockwave for my gelding’s SI last year ( 
)
My understanding is that it’s more expensive in the SI region than others because you need stronger pulses and more of them to really get into the joint.
My vet priced it at around $300 (cdn) for one treatment (need 3 sessions to start) Really hoping it holds lol!
I paid right at $900-1000 for the 1200 pulses on each side for SI. Mine said one session was enough to get me by for a few months.
I’ve not had it work. It’s pain relieving effects are short lived, assuming it’s done correctly. For SI, I much prefer injections.
This. I think they work best when done together. If I had to pick one or the other, it would be the injection. This assumes you have done an TR ultrasound to check out the SI joint and haven’t found any sort of obvious injury, soft tissue problem, etc. that you are targeting more specifically.
My horse had done a hind suspensory (both actually at different times). When it was time to do his hocks I inquired about his SI because he always seemed blocked there. We injected hocks and SI and he moves like a cat! I personally wouldn’t bother with shockwave and would just do the SI injection. (Also having done shockwave for the soft tissue injuries, I’m not sure I thought it did much, but that for sure wasn’t a double blind study as we did a lot of different treatments and I can’t say which one worked over another).
This is about where we’re at. He just had 4 months off due to a different front end lameness and his SI is still sore even with chiro. I’m ‘rehabbing’ him along a KS spine rehab idea (we’ve xrayed his back and ensured his back is fine, which it is) but I have all winter and doing a lot of ground work, over poles, and I got a Equiband system to strengthen his topline and build it up
I will most likely end up doing both, but I want to try shockwave first to see if it helps. In my mind, if the shockwave even just stops /lessens the pain response, and can help his posture, while he’s going back to work, it’ll end up making the injections last that much longer.
I can’t say how it works on the SI, but I will say that I know someone who’s horse has gnarly spine arthritis and actual scar tissue on his back where the saddle went. On both sides of his back you could feel and see the scar tissue, it was like two lumps on his back and fairly large. I think she did two rounds of shockwave, I think it was 2 years apart so not the recommended three sessions protocol. Anyways at least one of the sides of scar tissue went down completely and the other side is much smaller. I thought that was pretty amazing.
She did end up injecting the back anyways but as far as the scar tissue the shockwave did make a noticeable difference.
I would definitely try it! It’s much less invasive than injections, and probably cheaper (my client paid because it was her house so I have no idea the cost). IIRC the mare got a week off from someone on her back - I think we could start ground work after 3-4 days.
Not cheaper depending on what you inject anyway. I’ve been quoted $700 for shockwave. Just injected the SI with a steroid and my bill was $400 for injection and a lameness exam.
But if money is no issue it never hurts to start with shockwave and then go to injection if needed!
Oh wow. Guess I’m way off base there 
Yeah I inquired about shockwave and I’m sure it depends on the vet. But for both of the vets that offered I was quoted about $700 per time and they all recommended three total sessions two weeks apart from each other. But like I said in my other post the person I know that had it done just did the one session although I know they had recommended the series of three. But she could only afford the one.
To be fair though I’ve found a pretty big difference between vet clinics for certain things as far as pricing so it could just be the clinics around here
Interesting. Do you mind sharing what area you’re in? I’m in a very pricey area - I should ask my client what she paid. We also only did one treatment and it worked great for that horse. 🤷
I’m in Colorado.
I think there’s also different levels of strength of the machine for shockwave too which can change the price.
So glad it worked for that horse! Like I said, the horse with scar tissue seemed to get huge results from just the one session.
Not your question, but if you are using the hind quarter band and the ab band on the Equiband, that may be making the horse more sore. I don’t always like the hind quarter band for horses with lumbar spine or SI issues.
For your question, I have done both and had both work. It depends on a lot of other factors, and often SI pain goes hand in hand with distal limb discomfort of some sort and won’t go away until the distal limb is also addressed.
Also, shockwave can definitely be user dependent and I’ve seen some bad users.
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