Page 7 - Veterinary Laser Therapy in Small Animal Practice

Preface

For me, I am driven by two main philosophies: know more We struggled with the two extremes of
today about the world than I knew yesterday and lessen books that currently exist on this topic
the suffering of others. You’d be surprised how far that and in this profession: textbooks written
gets you. by academics and guidebooks written by
— Neil deGrasse Tyson laser users. The academics obviously understand best
what is fundamentally happening with light’s interac-
When we first started writing and think- tion with biological tissue, but their experimentations
ing about this project, we pictured at are often in cell culture, or at best on mice. That is
least two kinds of situations in which the where you go to learn the principles and where to start.
book could be used. The reader might The laser-user authors are clinicians who have, for one
have some time to sit down and enjoy learning more reason or another, purchased a therapy laser from one
about laser therapy; but the book should also be useful of the dozens of companies selling lasers of all types
when a patient has just come in with a severe otitis, a and with all sorts of output parameters, begun to have
bite wound, or a dehiscence after a fracture repair. Or clinical success using the parameters in those manufac-
maybe it is Mr. Whiskers who did not seem to improve turer-preset protocols, and then started lecturing and
after his last session and you want to modify some writing about their success stories.
parameters to get the clinical response you expect. Neither of these types of writing are terribly useful.
Clinical results will probably be obvious shortly We imagine you are reading this book to answer ques-
after you first implement laser therapy in your practice. tions like, “what parameters of laser have the best
But as treatments progress, you will also be faced with chance of working on this Rottweiler’s aching hip, what
more challenging cases. In such situations, it becomes kinds of biological effects should I expect on the treated
even more important to have a good knowledge of the tissue, how long should I expect to wait to see clinical
parameters you can modify. This, together with a good results, and what techniques could I use to maximize
review of what has been published and reported, will my consistency and efficacy.” The answer shouldn’t be
allow you to make more well-founded, customized to point you to an in vitro study of 25 mW exposure
choices for such patients. of 808 nm light on genetically modified strands of E.
I hope you enjoy performing laser therapy and offer- coli to measure the rotation rate of the flagellum as an
ing that option to your patients. You are relieving their indicator of their enhanced transmembrane proton
pain, speeding up their recovery, and improving their potential (don’t laugh, this is serious stuff). But neither
quality of life. At a molecular level, that is literally hap- should the answer be to show you before-and-after
pening at the speed of light. pictures of a pug who had a bruised elbow and who
— María after being treated with one commercially available
laser was “feeling better” according to the pet owner
(again, don’t laugh; those of you who have been to laser

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