Shockwave Therapy: Healing Soundwaves for Lasting Mobility
Imagine your pet moving with significantly less pain, reduced lameness, and increased mobility. At Ruff Day Vet, we are excited to offer Shockwave Therapy, a groundbreaking treatment that uses high-energy sound waves to unlock profound healing. This powerful modality can help transform your pet's comfort and function, especially when other options have fallen short.
Unlock Profound Healing with Shockwave Therapy
1. Pain Reduction
Shockwave Therapy stimulates your pet's natural healing to provide lasting relief from chronic discomfort.
We target the root cause of pain, so your pet can feel better, for longer
2. Reduced Lameness
By accelerating the healing of tendons and ligaments, Shockwave Therapy helps correct gait abnormalities.
This restores a sense of balance and confidence, allowing your pet to move with greater ease.
3. Increased Mobility
Our advanced therapy enhances blood flow and tissue regeneration, helping to restore your pet's range of motion. This unlocks their potential for vitality and joy, so they can get back to doing what they love.
How it Works: Activating Natural Recovery
These high-energy sound waves stimulate cells to release vital healing growth factors. This biological response helps to reduce inflammation, increase blood flow, accelerate bone formation, and enhance tendon, ligament, and wound healing. The result is a powerful boost to your pet's intrinsic ability to repair and regenerate damaged tissues, leading to faster and more lasting relief.
Our PulseVet System: Advanced Technology, Enhanced Comfort
At Ruff Day Vet, we utilize the PulseVet System, an electrohydraulic Shockwave unit. Unlike other systems that often require sedation, our PulseVet technology generally does not require us to sedate patients. That being said, we do frequently utilize oral, non-injectable medications to help reduce pain and anxiety during treatment. This makes it a safer and more comfortable treatment option, especially for senior and geriatric pets. The PulseVet system also allows us to treat a larger area to a deeper tissue depth than laser and other shockwave systems, providing more comprehensive therapy in the same amount of time.
Conditions We Support with Shockwave Therapy: Targeted Relief for Complex Challenges
Shockwave Therapy can be a transformative treatment for a variety of challenging conditions, offering significant benefits for pain reduction and improved function. We often recommend Shockwave for:
Osteoarthritis: Significant reduction of chronic joint pain and improved mobility.
Chronic Pain: Lasting relief for persistent discomfort where other methods may have plateaued.
Sprains and Strains: Accelerated healing of “hard to heal” tissues like tendon and ligament injuries.
Bone Fractures: Enhanced bone formation and faster recovery.
Back Pain: Effective management of chronic back pain.
Shoulder Instability: Support for joint stability and pain reduction.
Your Shockwave Therapy Experience: What to Expect
We understand you might have questions about a specialized therapy like Shockwave. Our goal is to ensure a transparent, comfortable, and effective experience for both you and your pet.
Time Commitment and Scheduling: Efficient & Focused Appointments
Shockwave Therapy is a specialized service offered as a separate 'Shock Wave Therapy Appointment,' and is not typically included in a standard integrative consultation or our regular treatment appointments. Treatments generally take less than 10 minutes per area. For most conditions, a series of three (3) treatments are scheduled approximately 2-3 weeks apart. This frequency allows for a significant boost in healing and tissue comfort, with results lasting 9-12 months or longer in chronic cases.
A Note on Recovery: While you may see immediate improvement, it's vital to keep exercise and high-impact activity to a minimum during the treatment period. This allows the body to fully heal and is a practice we recommend for all our therapies.
Noise Levels: Understanding the Sound
The unit produces a loud clicking sound that is not loud enough to require hearing protection, but may be alarming to dogs and some people. If you are concerned about the sound, we have an audio file you can sample to evaluate or desensitize them to the sound beforehand.
Your Questions Answered: Clarity and Confidence
Does Shockwave have to be repeated?
For most conditions, three (3) treatments are scheduled about 2-3 weeks apart. This treatment frequency allows for a big boost in healing and tissue comfort. In conditions where we are aiming for complete healing and resolution of the problem, such as with tendinitis cases, this series of 3 treatments is very rarely repeated. In chronic conditions such as arthritis or chronic back pain (NOT acute IVDD), one series of 3 treatments usually provides relief to the patient for 9-12 months, and often longer.
Why does it cost so much?
We invested in a Shockwave unit that, unlike other units, doesn’t require general anesthesia (though we often recommend using oral medication to make the experience more comfortable for pets), making it a safer treatment option for senior and geriatric patients. With each use, the trode is consumed and only has a limited number of uses before it must be "reloaded," contributing to the overall cost.
Why should I even do Laser if Shockwave is better?
Not every tool is useful in every single circumstance, and our veterinary staff will make recommendations for your pet based on the capabilities and limitations of Laser, Shockwave, and any other modalities we utilize or recommend. Laser has its specific indications. It is often better tolerated than Shockwave, it is great for more superficial conditions and acute IVDD, and it can be used in multiple locations in the body at one time. Laser is often used in conjunction with Shockwave, as recent evidence shows that these two treatment options may work synergistically in the body.
How noisy is Shockwave?
The unit produces a loud clicking sound that is not loud enough to require hearing protection, but may be alarming to dogs and some people. If you are concerned about the sound, we have an audio file you can sample to evaluate or desensitize them to the sound beforehand.
Other practices have told me that shockwave requires general anesthesia. Why is Ruff Day different?
Many older shockwave units can cause substantial pain during the treatment process. It is not ethical to subject an animal to a painful treatment without the benefit of general anesthesia. Our machine is different, and while some mild discomfort may be experienced during the treatment process, the combination of non-injectable sedatives and pain medications helps with this.
Most importantly, we rely heavily on positive reinforcement, utilizing distractions like treats and a fan to interfere with pain perception, and the calming presence of the owner to help soothe them.
At Ruff Day, we embrace a low-productivity model, ensuring that all of our staff’s attention is dedicated to just your pet, enabling you to be with your pet to help calm and soothe them through the entire treatment process.
Do you have to shave my pet?
Unless your pet’s coat is really short and thin over the treatment area, results are truly optimized by shaving the treatment area before applying rubbing alcohol and ultrasound gel. This will maximize conductivity of sound from the machine, to the deep tissues that are causing pain or dysfunction in your pet’s body.
Is there a video demonstrating how Shockwave Therapy works?
You can view a short video demonstrating the mechanism of action on the PulseVet company website.
Why Choose Shockwave Therapy at Ruff Day Vet?
Choosing a specialized therapy for your pet is an important decision. At Ruff Day Vet, our commitment to advanced, compassionate care ensures that Shockwave Therapy is delivered with precision, expertise, and a focus on your pet's comfort and lasting well-being. Our use of the PulseVet system reflects our dedication to offering the safest and most effective options available.
Stories of Transformation & Resilience
The true measure of our impact lies in the lives we've transformed and the peace of mind we bring to pet parents.
Explore compelling testimonials and success stories from other families who have partnered with Ruff Day Vet + Pet Gym.
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