Gus' New Legs (Ionto Patch & MCT)

Sorry for the extended break.  Life got... well, lifelike and I've been everywhere but the barn. 

While I was everywhere (but the barn) Gus' new toys came in that will (hopefully) help us manage his Right Front a bit better and maybe even make some progress. 

While I've been gone, S has been helping to slowly get Gus up to wearing his BoT standing wraps overnight.  He appears to be a bit more comfortable traveling left and has stopped bobbing his head like a totally sad, lame horse. (yay).

The next step is to start the first treatment (of a three week course) of phoresing serapin and dex into the right front. 

To do this we're using a little piece of magic from Matrix Therapy Products called the Ionto Patch STAT.

The Ionto Patch is basically a trans-dermal method of delivering drugs (like a nicotine patch) so that the drugs are dispersed more evenly over an area (like a tendon) than if you were to inject. 

Apparently this process works best with certain tissues, and those tissues are - tendon, tendon sheath, fascia and bursa - perfect for Gussie's little situation. 
 
The semi-brilliance of the Ionto Patch is that rather than just passively absorbing into the skin (like a nicotine patch), the pad has a self contained battery while allows the Patch to be charged (either positively or negatively). 

This is where my (one) psycho-pharmacology class from college fails me and I rely entirely on what my vet says. 

Apparently most drugs have either a positive or negative ionic charge to them.  This charge means that they can be pushed or pulled by another charged object (think magnets).  The Ionto Patch works by repelling the medicine out of the patch with a like charge.  Just like when you used to chase magnets around with a similarly charged end of another magnet.

Essentially, you fill the pad with 1cc of a (-) drug, and the other side of the pad with 1cc of a (+) drug, fix it to their leg and then turn it on.  The negative drug, in this case dex (Dexamethasone Sodium Phosphate), is repelled from the pad by a like (negative) charge.  This helps speed absorption rates and prevents unused drugs from staying in the patch itself.

In our scenario, the + drug will be sarapin for pain relief. 

The other fun goodie we got from Matrix is a small Microcurrent Therapy patch.   In theory microcurrent helps stimulate Type 1 Collagen production (not type 3 which is scar tissue) and can assist in the healing of strains and tears in tendons and ligaments.  It's been shown to reduce pain in older injuries and even have impact on (very small) hairline fractures.  Basically it helps to increase circulation. 

Applications of the MCT patch...

Like the Ionto patch, these MCT patches have self-contained batteries.  The MCT patches can be reapplied again and again until their batteries run out (which is after 250-400 of use). 

I'm under direction to administer the Drugs with the Ionto Patch, then follow up with the MCT. 

Since the Ionto Patch takes 4 hours to fun its course I need to find a good day where I can hang out at the barn and witness the entire process.  The instructions seem easy enough but Something about trying to stick battery operated patches to a lower limb sounds like it may be slightly trickier than I'd like it to be.

Has anyone used these things? Very interested to see what the impact is.