Laser Focused: How photobiomodulation can aid healing
- Dallas Duncan
- Aug 28
- 6 min read
Content notice: Please be aware that this blog post contains images of an open wound during its healing process.
Comer Vet’s Dr. Amy Goggans is a “see it to believe it” kind of person. She had her doubts about laser therapy at first, but that was before she saw how quickly it aided improvement in one of her canine patients.
When Goggans first saw Bandit, a black lab from Dewy Rose, Georgia, he arrived as an emergency case. He’d gone chasing after a chipmunk, then let out an almighty yelp. When owner Amber Vaughn and her husband found him, he appeared partially paralyzed. The cause of Bandit’s injury remains unknown, but it affected his spine and hind legs, taking him from a romping pup to unable to walk in a matter of seconds.
“He had no feeling in either of the back legs, but he was very painful in his back, about midway down,” Goggans recalls. She took radiographs to see if there was a fracture or spinal damage, but none were evident, so Bandit was put on medication and spent a couple of nights at the clinic. Initially, the steroids helped him regain some mobility. It just so happened that around the time of his visit, the clinic’s laser machine was soon to arrive. Comer Vet Hospital owner Dr. Tyson Strickland told the Vaughns he thought Bandit would be a great candidate.
“It was really amazing to watch [Bandit] on his journey,” Vaughn says. “Even when he did start moving again, it was very slow. His feet were still turned under. It was a hard process to watch. I would say within three laser treatments, he regained tail movement. Then his feet would flip up to where he was walking on his paws.”
Nowadays, Bandit has almost full range of motion, which Vaughn attributes in large part to the laser therapy.
“We are a quality of life vs. quantity of life, and we were really close to making the decision of, ‘Are we gonna have to put him down?’ This dog is a people person and with him being paralyzed on his back half, we didn’t know what kind of life he was gonna have. He had nothing to lose,” Vaughn says. “If Comer thought it was gonna work, we said we owe it to him to try.”
Photobiomodulation at Comer Vet
The official name for laser therapy is photobiomodulation, and it’s also been referred to as low-light or “cold” laser. Unlike the hot lasers used for precision cutting, laser therapy can help kickstart a chain of cellular reactions. According to Companion Animal Care, the company that manufactured the laser used at Comer Vet, those reactions have been shown to result in reduced inflammation, pain, and surgical site infections.
The exact science of why photobiomodulation works is not fully understood yet, in part because it has so many varied applications with myriad circumstances. This makes it challenging to gain any sort of control group for a medical study.
“It actually has been shown that there’s something about the wavelength, or the conversion of the energy from the light, that cells can then use as an energy source,” says Dr. Caitlin Quinn, a veterinarian at Comer Vet. “So, it promotes blood flow to the region, but it also can potentially be used as an energy source in these areas that have compromised nutrient delivery.”
She says if vets can provide energy to damaged cells, such as those on the outer edge of a wound, it can help keep those cells alive and promote healing by encouraging the body to do what it already does when a wound or injury arises.
Because of its known benefits in instances of inflammation, several Comer Vet pet parents have opted to try laser therapy for animals with chronic concerns. One of those is Katie Thigpen of Athens, Georgia, dog-mom to a pug named Peach. Peach is suspected to have pug myelopathy, a nerve breakdown that leads to mobility loss in the back legs. An official diagnosis of this disease requires dogs to undergo a MRI, which Thigpen says she was hesitant to go through since she knows if Peach has pug myelopathy, it’s incurable. Instead, she began looking for ways to mitigate Peach’s symptoms.
“It’s tough, because they’re not in any pain at all, but just I can kind of see her slipping around more and she doesn’t jump anymore, can’t land safely,” Thigpen says. “[Dr. Preston Russell of Comer Vet] mentioned it. He said, ‘I don’t know if it’ll work. We use it for pain mostly, but it positively impacts inflammation, so it makes sense that it could help.’”
And help, it has. Thigpen believes there’s a visible difference in Peach’s mobility and activity levels since she began laser therapy, and she says Russell’s transparency about its potential effectiveness was a big selling point in her decision to give it a go.
“We’re kind of trying to figure out what the rhythm is for maintaining, but I think that is something we’ll definitely continue to do. Also, it’s so affordable compared to other treatment methods,” she says. “And to be able to see a difference? We’re just so glad.”
Cost-Conscious Option
“It was not what I expected,” Vaughn says of Bandit’s treatment package pricing. “I thought we were going to be into thousands, and the commitment that we made was in the hundreds of dollars. It is very affordable.”
Rosalie McKenzie of Lexington had a similar reaction when she approached Comer Vet about a second opinion on treatment for her beagle, Tricksey’s, traumatic open wound. She chose to get a second opinion after an emergency vet quoted her several thousand dollars for surgery. McKenzie believes Tricksey was shot, though no firm cause of her injury was able to be established due to the time that elapsed between when the dog went missing and when she arrived at the clinic to see Dr. Quinn.
Once Quinn saw photos of Tricksey’s wound, she thought the beagle might be a good candidate for laser therapy and wound management as an alternative to the surgical. Though this alternative would have a longer healing time than surgery would, and though Quinn indicated Tricksey may still need to undergo surgery in the future, this could at least be a starting point to see how the wound began to recover.
“I was like, if Dr. Quinn tells me she can do this, I know she can do this,” McKenzie says. “I was just totally amazed at how that healed.”
In addition to Tricksey’s regular laser treatments, McKenzie was sent home after each session with instructions on at-home wound care to further promote healing. McKenzie says the hardest part of recovery was Tricksey learning how to wear the cone so that she wouldn’t lick or disturb her stitches.
As far as deciding what pets might be good candidates for laser therapy, both Quinn and Goggans say it’s a case-by-case basis with a number of factors going into their decision. For example, Comer Vet’s doctors don’t use photobiomodulation on cancer patients, since they don’t want to encourage the cancerous cells to heal and grow, Quinn says. There are other instances in which laser therapy might not be the best option, such as being used on a surgery site or wound area that’s been left open to allow for drainage.
For pet parents who’ve been presented with the option for laser therapy, it seems they’re happy with their outcomes.
“If you can improve their quality of life or slow a disease, it still worked,” Thigpen says. “Even if she’s in a wheelchair in a year, I believe her summer is gonna be more active and she’s gonna be more vivacious.”
To inquire about laser therapy at Comer Vet, please give us a call at 706-783-5111 or request an appointment through our online form.
