[RC] question about thermal imaging - Marlene Moss
Hello all,
I have been tossing around some ideas on how to expand my
business.I have been focusing entirely
on saddle fit for the last year or so, with an emphasis on how the horse
changes when he moves and how that affects saddle fit.I am a big fan of the Port Lewis
Impression Pad and have been able to see results with it that were surprising
in many cases. There is a vet/chiro in my area that used to have an electronic pressure
pad.Those have their limitations
but if understood, valuable information could be gleaned.But it had enough difficulties that she
has returned it to the manufacturer.
I recently recommended that a friend take her horse to
someone with a thermal imaging camera. The horse had had surgery for a severe
club foot, appeared to recover well but was again having problems, in several
areas and inconsistently. He was
off on the club, short strided in the rear and
showing reaction to mounting (which was a long term problem, didn’t
appear to be a saddle fit issue, but quite possibly a mounting method problem
or an underlying physical issue).
We thought it would be quite expensive to radiograph or
ultrasound all the affected areas, but that thermal imaging would be a cheaper
way of narrowing down the areas to look at. It was very successful as well as
fascinating.We could see stress on
the club leg, the hoof looked good, hocks were sore, we
could see where he was dealing with scratches (owner thought they had healed)
and a back problem.
Anyhow (yeah, I know, this is getting long!) I was
sufficiently impressed to start thinking how much I could use one of these
cameras. They are very expensive so
my second thought had to be how to pay for it!I’ve got some good ideas and one
of them was to use it at rides. There are many times when a horse is
pulled for an obvious but unclear issue, and of course the ride vets can’t
take too much time trying to diagnose every lameness or sore back.
So, show of hands here (privately if you wish), if you were
in this situation and I happened to be at your ride, would you consider paying
a reduced amount for a non-veterinarian to provide you with some thermal scans
of your horse? This would normally
be a $50-75 service, I would consider charging $35 and
would include other saddle fitting checks if that made sense.Keep in mind that I am not a vet, could
not make a vet level diagnoses, but could identify areas that showed either hot
or cold and provide you with images that you could take to your vet when you
returned home.Also keeping in mind
that this sort of thing can’t be done out in the sun (I’m
investigating to determine what level of “shade” will work, so hang
on to those awnings, mine blew away at the Pan Am in WA!)
I think there are a number of people in California who can
provide these services; I’m here in Colorado where it’s
a little more sparse.But that doesn’t mean that I’ll
only be in the mountain region if this seems useful and popular.
I appreciate any feedback – my husband will not
appreciate me spending $12k just to scan my own horses!
