Without treatment, lameness can cause decreased performance, pain and even early retirement for your horse. It hasn't been that long ago, that treatment options for soft tissue injuries, relied heavily on extensive rest, followed by a carefully designed exercise routine. Many horses would return to work only to reinjure themselves.
At Countryside, we use Regenerative Therapies such as RenoVō®, Pro-stride, Stem Cell Therapy, Platelet-rich Plasma (PRP), and IRAP to help stimulate healing in equine joints, tendon and ligament injuries and make the repairs stronger. These forms of Regenerative Medicine originate Autologously, from the horse's own body or Allogeneically, from a donor. Regenerative Medicine has been a game changer in positively affecting the healing process. Each Regenerative Therapy has benefits, but depending on the injury, one may be better suited as treatment than another.
Countryside offers and is experienced in all of the therapies:
RenoVō® is a relatively new advancement in Regenerative Medicine. It provides an alternative Allogeneic treatment option, meaning the Regenerative Medicine originates from donor tissue rather than from the horse’s own body. The product is derived from equine amniotic birth tissues, which are rich in bioactive factors essential in tissue healing and regeneration because they contain anti-inflammatory, anti-bacterial, epithelialization and anti-fibrotic properties. The donors are healthy mares and the tissues are collected without harm to the mare or foal.
RenoVō® is manufactured by Equus Innovations (Phoenix, Arizona) and has been used in over 12,000 horses to date. Multiple studies have established the product as a safe and highly effective alternative to existing Regenerative modalities used for equine injuries.
Countryside Veterinary Services offers another fairly new and advanced Regenerative Therapy, Pro-Stride, an anti-inflammatory medicine used to treat joint inflammation and arthritis.
Unlike PRP and IRAP which require 3-5 treatments at 1 week intervals, Pro-stride’s advanced treatment is administered in 1 concentrated joint injection. Pro-Stride also has only a 20 minute processing time as opposed to 24 hours with IRAP.
Pro-stride is a natural, steroid free treatment that is centrifuged from your horse's own blood. This means there is no need to worry about drug testing for your competition horse - this includes FEI and USEF sanctions. It also eliminates risks associated with steroid therapies.
Pro-stride is a natural, drug-free, anti-inflammatory joint treatment. It contains a supercharged solution of cells, platelets, growth factors and anti-inflammatory proteins; including IL1-ra (commonly referred to as the IRAP protein).
IRAP therapy, or Interleukin-1 Receptor Antagonist Protein, is a novel approach in treating osteoarthritis (OA) in horses. It's especially helpful in reducing joint inflammation and preventing continued degeneration and progression of osteoarthritis. The procedure begins with drawing blood from the horse that will be treated with IRAP. The blood-filled syringe is specially prepared with glass beads that stimulate production of the antagonist protein and an anticoagulant. The blood is harvested, incubated and centrifuged to separate the serum (abundant with IRAP) from the blood. Typically, IRAP treatments are performed once a week for three weeks, and usually after that time, the horse can return to normal work.
Stem cell therapy is designed to regenerate injured or damaged tissues through the use of stem cells derived from the horse’s own body. The stem cells can be collected from the horse's bone marrow. Stem cells are injected directly into the site that requires treatment. There, they develop into new cells of the desired tissue type to help in repair of damaged tissue. Stem cells can be used to treat a variety of conditions, including tendonitis, ligament injuries, osteoarthritis, fracture repairs, meniscal injuries etc.
PRP, which stands for platelet-rich plasma, is created from your horse’s blood right here in our lab at Countryside. A sample of blood is drawn and spun in a special centrifuge to separate the plasma and platelets from the red blood cells and most of the white blood cells. The plasma is then concentrated so it contains higher-than-normal blood levels of platelets. It's ready for injection into the injury the same day, often in less than an hour.
PRP is used for tendon and ligament healing and granulation of tissue defects. Normal PRP therapy is recommended for both recent tendon and ligament injuries as well as injuries that have not healed using traditional rest and controlled exercise. PRP can also be used for horses with severe joint disease that are no longer responding to traditional joint therapy (injection with hyaluronic acid and corticosteroids).
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