Identification
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Name
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Age
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Type
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Jessica
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Approx. 21
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Wrist sprain / undiagnosed tendonitis
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History
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Normally fit and well but over the last few months, performance at
basic routine tasks has deteriorated.
Some abnormal behaviour has presented itself, mainly in the form of moaning. The moans describe a consistent burning
pain but worse with added pressure or twisting. Picking hooves is particularly painful,
giving a sharper more unbearable pain.
Lifting a lot of weight or applying a lot of pressure also results in
a sharper pain.
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Initial issue, reason for
visiting Therapy
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Luckily, Jessica is here at the Equine Therapy Centre every day, so
really should be making use of the cold water saline spa.
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Diagnostics
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No official diagnosis. Just repetitive moaning about how sore the
wrist has become. And the pain has
increased over a time period of a few months.
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Treatment
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COLD WATER SALINE SPA!
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Results
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Less pain!
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Those of you that have been to the Equine Therapy
Centre with your horse over the last few months may have had the ‘pleasure’ of
hearing me complain about the pain in my wrist!
It seemed to be getting progressively worse too, starting as an
intermittent dull ache leading to a pretty much permanent pain that was incredibly
sharp on any lifting, twisting and particularly in tasks that require applying
pressure such as picking feet. It
occurred to me that perhaps I should try submerging my wrist through the hatch
into the freezing salty water of the spa to see if it would make it any
better. So, one lunch time, a couple of
weeks ago now, I made the time and plunged my right arm through the hatch into
the icy water, down to my elbow. In all
honestly, I thought that it might sting a bit for a second or two but that I
would easily be able to brave it out for ten minutes or so! How wrong was I?!!! Wow!
It was really cold! It was
agony! I could only manage 20 seconds or
so at a time before yanking my arm back out again. I could feel the cold blood going back up my
arm into my shoulder and over my back and it was surprisingly painful! But I persevered and kept dunking it back in,
all the time keeping an eye on a stopwatch to see how long I could hold it under
for the next time. After about two
minutes of intermittent dunking and yanking back out, my arm went numb and it
became bearable so I could keep it there for ten minutes or so.
Afterwards, I made sure to wash the salt off my now
bright red arm, and went back into the office with it stinging just a little as
it slowly started to warm up. That same
afternoon, the pain was noticeably improved.
I mean, dramatically improved. It
had got to the point that my wrist was burning and aching at rest, but instantly
after the cold water spa, the pain was much much less. So I persevered with the cold therapy over a
few days (whenever I got time), and I can honestly say the pain has more or
less gone.
Obviously, there has been no official diagnosis, no
sophisticated scan images to be able to make any comparisons and no scientific
element to this study at all! But at
least I can give a first-hand account of the dramatic change in the level of
pain that I have felt. I am sure the
ideal would have been a prescribed period of rest however in my job it is
simply not possible for me to be able to rest my dominant arm! But this has been a really interesting and
valuable experience to be able to feel first-hand how well the cold water spa
has worked to reduce the pain. I am sure
that if I was more consistent with using the spa and more frequent with it too,
the pain and soreness would be completely eliminated.
One of our previous blogs talks about the benefits
of the cold water saline spa for horses.
Have a look http://mcequinehydrotherapy.blogspot.com/2017/09/cold-water-hydrotherapy-spa.html. But when it comes to horses, it’s important to
remember that not all horses will tolerate it!
It is probably the most risky of all our hydrotherapies if the horse
takes a dislike to it. But, if tolerated
and used correctly, it certainly has excellent healing properties and produces
tremendous results.
