Helping to improve your pet’s Ability to Heal and their Mobility
Pet Chiropractic & Manual Therapies in Jupiter, FL
We provide a gentle hands-on approach to helping your pet heal.
What is pet manual therapy?
Chiropractic Adjustments:
Chiropractic adjustments are not just for sore muscles and aches & pains! Restrictions (that’s what gets ‘adjusted’ during spinal manipulation) can affect not only the movement of the skeleton and limbs but can also affect all of the organs and processes inside the body. This is because every organ in our chest and abdomen and every endocrine organ and hormone in our (and our animals’) bodies are controlled by nerves that leave the spinal cord and then pass through little openings between the vertebrae. If the vertebrae are not perfectly aligned, then the nerves passing through the tiny spaces between them will be affected, which obviously affects the muscle/joint/organ/hormone controlled by that nerve!
We often talk about chiropractic issues as being caused by adhesions and spasms in adjacent muscles and other tissues that restrict the normal movement of vertebrae and any other joints, but these small spasms and restrictions actually restrict blood flow and lymphatic flow to the nerves that control everything. Without the neurological output to the muscles, bones, and organs (and more importantly, the neurological feedback through these nerves to the Central Nervous System), nothing can function properly, whether it’s your back & neck or your immune & hormone systems!
We use special palpation techniques to help identify these restrictions during our hands-on exam, and sometimes the act of ‘feeling’ for restrictions during our exam (motion palpation) will be enough to cause the restriction to release.
Rehabilitation Exercises:
During our exam and discussion, we assess Range-of-Motion (ROM), flexibility, muscle mass, tone, and strength and determine how these are affecting your pet’s ADLs (Activities of Daily Living). There are many other factors that affect ROM and mobility that we’ll also address to help your pet rebuild or maintain mobility and flexibility. We encourage you to actively assist in the process of helping & healing your pet. We can demonstrate recommended rehab exercises and stretches, link you to professional demonstration videos, and, if necessary we can schedule follow-up visits where we perform the rehab exercises.
These are similar to, yet very different from, chiropractic spinal manipulation. Osteopathy deals more with finding and releasing restrictions in the fascia/connective tissue around the blood vessels, lymphatic vessels, and internal organs so that they can move freely with the body as the body moves.
Massage:
Therapeutic Massage is used to help release restricted/spasmed muscles (which affects all joints, nerves, vessels, and other muscles) and to help direct toxins and blood and other fluids in the spaces between cells back into the systemic circulation where they can be properly processed.
We offer some massage as time permits during our initial exam, and we can also schedule follow-up visits that focus on massage.
What Is Laser Therapy For Pets?
Laser Therapy uses specific wavelengths of light to stimulate cells to repair and increase production of anti-inflammatory modulators, resulting in both healing & repair of tissues while helping to alleviate pain.
The laser treats regions of the body that are in pain or have experienced trauma with painless waves of light. This activates a natural reaction without the need for medication or other invasive procedures. As a result, your loved one may experience less discomfort, enhanced mobility, and faster recuperation times.
What is LASER?
LASER Therapy uses specific wavelengths of high-powered light directed into the tissues, which causes a group of specific effects on the body’s cells. As most of us learned in the 1980s, LASER is Light Amplification by Stimulated Electron Radiation. ‘Electron Radiation’ may sound scary, and at certain wavelengths and super-high-power, it is scary and used to cut through steel. Still, the effect depends on the wavelength (related to frequency) and power.
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- The ‘L’ is for light. Light is part of the electromagnetic spectrum, including the visible light that humans and animals can see, UltraViolet (UV) Light, and many others. Everything on the ElectroMagnetic Spectrum is not Light, light is only part of the Spectrum. Everything on the spectrum is electromagnetic Radiation (EMR). The Light from the Sun is actually Solar Radiation, but we only call it ‘light’ because we can visibly see it. Radar, microwaves, infrared, cell signals, radio waves, WiFi- these are all different wavelengths on the EMR, and they ALL affect living tissues. Therapy LASER uses a specific wavelength that has a positive healing effect on our cell’s energy-production and repair centers.
- The ‘ASER’ in LASER basically means that we have applied some extra energy to the particular wavelength of light to penetrate deeper into the tissues to have a deeper effect (Think of shining flashlights of varying strength through your hand or cheek).
LASER Therapy is also known as PhotoBioModulation: Photo = Light; Bio = Life, Cells; Modulation = to have some effect.
Laser therapy can be used to treat a multitude of ailments, including:
- Arthritis
- Hip dysplasia
- Back pain
- Gingivitis
- Hot spots
- Open wounds
- Ear infections
- Anal gland infections
- Muscle, ligament, and tendon injuries
- Soft tissue trauma
- Trembling
- And almost any other problem!