The biggest thing is figuring out what the best laser therapy plan is for your pet. And every pet is different. Maybe you have a hunting dog where you set up laser therapy sessions after a big hunt with your dog and help provide any muscle soreness and provide some relief there. Maybe you have an older pet who has arthritis and would benefit from laser therapy, or maybe your dog has an ear infection. And those ears could benefit from laser therapy. So the best thing to do is talk to your vet about what's going on with your pet, and they can help you figure out the best plan.

No, it is not painful at all. And laser therapy can decrease your pet's pain. It can trigger acupressure points that provide musculoskeletal relief as well as blocking nerve receptors to reduce pain.

No, there aren't any risks or side effects. There's a couple of situations where we wouldn't recommend laser therapy. Especially when it comes to things like mass removals or things like that. But other than that, as long as we're using it appropriately, it is perfectly safe.

It is completely safe. So the great thing about laser therapy, it is non-invasive. We have our unit here; it’s not set up. But basically, what it is is it's this wand that a special light comes out of. And so, really, all we're doing is touching the wand to your pet. So it's not invasive. It doesn't hurt them. They tend to enjoy it.

There's some standardized scoring we can use. Colorado State Vet School came up with a pretty standard pain scale we tend to use for our surgical patients or our patients that come into the hospital. Sometimes it's as obvious as your pet comes in limping, and we know exactly what the pain source is, and we can gauge from there. But for those more subtle injuries, we want to go back to the dog’s original normal and make sure we're managing their pain well.

If you felt like you notice any of those symptoms or if your pet seems off, we would recommend having them checked out. We're big proponents of pain management here at Advanced Animal Care, and we want to make sure everybody stays comfortable. If you feel like there's anything that's not right, I would make a call and have them seen.