Shock wave therapy is a treatment that is increasingly used by veterinarians to treat orthopedic problems such as bone fractures and navicular disease. Mnay vets say shock wave therapy can promote bone growth and healing and minimize pain.

Contrary to what its name implies, shock wave therapy does not use electrical pulses, but rather high-energy acoustic pulses, much like sound waves, that have the ability to travel readily through soft tissues to effect hard material and tissues such as mineralized deposits or bone.

A shock-wave unit consists of a box that generates the acoustic waves connected to a wand that can be held up to the body to target the waves to a specific site of treatment.



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Shock wave therapy was originally used in veterinary medicine to break up kidney stones. Since the acoustic waves can travel through soft tissue, when these waves are directed toward the kidney, they pass right through muscle and kidney tissues. Once these waves meet something hard like a kidney stone, they can fracture the stone apart. Breaking up kidney stones into smaller fragments allows them to be passed through the urine, often eliminating the need for surgical removal of the stones.





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Veterinary practitioners have recently discovered more uses for shock wave therapy. Since the acoustic waves can travel through soft tissue and effect hard materials, they can be used to target bones. For bone fractures that aren't healing well in dogs and cats, or for stress fractures in horses, shock wave therapy using low doses of acoustic waves can enhance bone growth and healing two ways:  by stimulating osteoclasts, the bone cells that rebuild the bone, and by enhancing the development of new blood vessels.






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