“The EQ Pro is a low frequency therapeutic ultrasound device. Our practice focuses on show horse medicine and so we tend to use it kind of in three main areas, acute inflammatory conditions, such as if we get an inflamed flexor tendon or suspensory ligament branch, after icing protocol, that’s usually the first thing that we do. We find it very effective at pushing edema, both insertional edema out of the ligament and periligamentous edema up the leg and it has been very effective for that. It also works great for myositis, muscle pain, we work on a lot of saddle seat horses that tend to get sore backs due to their head and neck carriage; and it’s a very effective technique for us, it’s non-painful, it’s quiet, the horses seem to enjoy it, you can add heat with it as well, so it has been good for that. More recently we have been using it on a lot of chronic joint pain in the competition environment, just as a sort of a rescue therapy for a horse that you know you have a condition there, you have been managing it, but maybe towards the end of the show it gets a little sore, it tends to be a very effective pain relief for that. Our practice has a pretty strong seasonality to it, so during show season each unit probably gets used anywhere from 4 to 6 cases a day. In the slower times then obviously it doesn’t get used as much, but during those down times that’s when we are doing a lot of rehab therapy, usually combined with some other regenerative medicine and so we tend to use it as an adjunct therapy for that as well as we are bringing these horses back into work and your are dealing with a little bit of low grade inflammation. It’s been a very durable machine for us. We have 3 of them in the practice; we haven’t had any maintenance issues. The company has been extremely supportive and responsive to us. Anytime we have a question about a protocol or a new application that we want to try, you know, they’ve gotten with their development people and talked it through and gave us an answer rapidly, so we’ve appreciated that about working with the EQ Pro. I certainly would recommend this unit, like I said, we’ve got multiple units, we’ve integrated it along with other regenerative therapies in our practice and it seems like it works hand in hand with other devices, such as shockwave therapy or regenerative laser. They all have their unique capabilities in times when we use them and we’ve been very successful with it and I would definitely recommend other practitioners particularly in the sport medicine show environment: I think it is an excellent tool.”
Ty Wallis DVM, MS, DACVS – Equine Athlete Veterinary Services – USA