It’s always heartrending for an animal lover to watch elderly or injured pets limping and struggling painfully through life. When your pet is hurting, you want to help them feel better and/or heal faster; on the other hand, you don’t want to endanger their health further with large doses of pain medication if there’s another answer. Here at Grayslake Animal Hospital, we have that answer– cold laser therapy for pets just like yours.
Laser Therapy
What Is Veterinary Laser Therapy?
If you’ve never heard of veterinary laser therapy, it’s important not to confuse this form of treatment with the high-frequency surgical lasers that cut and cauterize. Cold laser therapy, also called low-level laser therapy or LLLT, uses frequencies of amplified light that aren’t powerful enough to damage your pet’s tissues in any way. But the beam is powerful enough to penetrate the skin and focus its energies on the tissues underneath — tissues that may have sustained a recent injury or suffer from painful chronic inflammation.
Benefits of Laser Treatment for Pets in Grayslake
What does veterinary laser therapy actually do? The laser beam stimulates the manufacture of a substance called ATP. ATP is the “fuel” cells need to repair and regenerate themselves; the more fuel they have, the more quickly and thoroughly they can heal injured tissues. The laser, therefore, accelerates your pet’s ability to rehabilitate a troublesome soft tissue injury. The energy from the laser also improves circulation in the tissues, allowing them to expel inflammatory substances that cause pain and swelling. This makes veterinary laser therapy a great tool for relieving chronic pain in pets that can’t or shouldn’t receive heavy painkillers. Our Grayslake veterinarian may prescribe cold laser therapy for pets suffering from:
- Osteoarthritis
- Tendonitis
- Sprain injuries
- Strained muscles
- Nerve damage
- Surface wounds from recent injuries or surgical incisions
- Fracture healing