The mare presented with a deep laceration to the Hamstring muscle the Semitendinosus, which is a Large muscle, forming the contour of the caudal thigh. In horses, the muscle is comprised of two heads; the bellies of which then reunite and run as a flat tendon to the medial side of the leg. The action of the muscle is to Extend the hip, stifle and tarsus during weightbearing causing propulsion. When the limb is non-weightbearing, it flexes the stifle, rotates the leg outwards and moves it backwards. The wound started off as a puncture wound which progressed to tearing down the Semitendinosus muscle which then became infected and tender to palpation. The wound was approximately 2 weeks old. The mare had finished a course of antibiotics to help clear the infection, as you can see from the images the infection was very much active and the wound was still open.
Chronic Wound Protocol: I treated the wound aggressively with treatments every second day for for the first two weeks. My aim was to control the bacterial infection and accellerate the healing.
Class IV therapy lasers utilize infrared wavelengths that penetrate skin and bone to deliver an optimum therapeutic dosage to the targets inside the body. Distinct wavelengths target different cellular components in the tissue with the end result of increased circulation and oxygen delivery along with enhanced cellular metabolic activity.
Bacteria, the source of most of these infections, have a different characteristic. They don't like oxygen. Most bacteria are anaerobes that proliferate and metabolise much better in the absence of oxygen. Fortunately, this is in direct contradiction with the way our cells flourish and so stimulating the oxygen intake and conversion process will simultaneously help to healthy cells and inhibit bacteria.
Session 1 Pre Laser
Session 1 Post Laser
Session 3 Post Laser
Session 5 Post Laser
Overall administered 30 treatments.
Follow up session with no treatment on the 21st March 2016, see below.
And here is the horse in action
