Red Light Therapy for Sesamoiditis in Horses: Why It's a Ligament Problem, Not a Bone Problem (2026 Guide)
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The word "sesamoiditis" points at a bone. The injury that actually decides your horse's future is usually in the ligament attached to it. That is not a rhetorical flourish — it is what the research shows. Sesamoiditis is the most common finding on Thoroughbred yearling presale radiographs, and it is best understood as a reaction at the point where the suspensory ligament branch inserts onto the sesamoid, rather than as a primary disease of bone. If you are working through a swollen or sore fetlock more generally, our guide to fetlock injuries in horses covers the wider joint this sits inside.
The second point is the one that changes how you read a report: vascular channels are normal anatomy. Micro-CT examination of proximal sesamoid bones found that every single bone had vascular channels — averaging 3.6 per bone — yet only 63.6% of those channels were visible on radiographs at all. So a film showing channels is not showing you a disease; it is showing you the channels large enough to appear. The question is never "does he have sesamoiditis," it is "what grade, and what does the branch look like on ultrasound." That distinction is also what determines whether a supportive tool such as a red light therapy leg wrap has anything useful to do here.
The third point is where red light therapy honestly fits, and it follows directly from the first two: light cannot reach or remodel the inside of a sesamoid bone — but the suspensory ligament branch running down the side of the fetlock to its attachment is superficial, palpable and within reach. That is the difference between a claim this article will make and a claim it will not. Nothing below suggests light changes a radiographic grade. What it can plausibly support is the soft tissue that the grade is warning you about.
What Sesamoiditis Actually Is — And Why the Name Misleads
The proximal sesamoid bones are two small bones sitting at the back of the fetlock joint. They do two jobs. They act as a pulley, redirecting the flexor tendons around the back of the joint, and they serve as the anchor point where the two branches of the suspensory ligament attach. That second job is the one that matters here.
The short answer. Sesamoiditis is inflammation and remodelling affecting the proximal sesamoid bones. Radiographically it shows as enlarged or increased numbers of vascular channels, bony proliferation on the non-articular surfaces of the bone, and sometimes linear or cystic lysis appearing to penetrate the sesamoid from the abaxial surface.
But the mechanism is ligamentous. Sesamoiditis is believed to be associated with injury at the suspensory branch attachment, and it is usually associated with degenerative change in the suspensory ligament. The bone is reacting to what is being pulled on it. Treating the finding as a bone disease leads people to ask the wrong questions and set the wrong timelines.
Vascular channels are normal anatomy, not pathology
This is the single most misunderstood point in the whole subject. A micro-computed tomography study of 118 proximal sesamoid bones collected from 59 horses found that all of them had at least one vascular channel originating from the abaxial border, with a mean of 3.6 channels per bone. Only 63.6% of those channels — 75 out of 118 bones — were identifiable on radiographs.
Bones with a higher bone volume fraction and a wider channel diameter on micro-CT were more likely to have their channels show up radiographically. In other words, the radiograph is a coarse filter. It reveals the larger channels and misses the rest. What you are grading on a film is not the presence or absence of a structure that should not be there; it is the size and number of a structure that is present in every horse.
That study did find something clinically meaningful: greater radiographic channel number and greater channel diameter were associated with fewer career placings. It also found no association between any variable examined and the horse being subjected to euthanasia due to catastrophic fracture — a useful corrective to the assumption that sesamoiditis is a fracture-risk marker.
Why the pathogenesis is still described as poorly understood
It is worth being straightforward about the state of the evidence. Abnormalities in vascular channel appearance are the most common finding in Thoroughbred yearling presale radiographs and are routinely evaluated on radiographs of adult racehorses, yet their pathogenesis and clinical significance remain poorly understood, and associations with racing performance across studies have been inconsistent.
That inconsistency is not a reason to dismiss the finding. It is a reason to stop treating "sesamoiditis: yes/no" as a meaningful output and to focus on the two things that do carry consistent signal — the grade, and the state of the adjacent suspensory ligament branch.
The Ligament Is the Story: What the Numbers Actually Show
If you take one section from this article, take this one. A series of studies has looked specifically at whether sesamoiditis in yearlings predicts subsequent clinical injury to the suspensory ligament branch attached to that sesamoid. The answers are unusually clear for this field.
The two odds ratios that reframe the diagnosis
In a study of 50 untrained yearling Thoroughbreds — 200 forelimb sesamoid and suspensory ligament branch pairs — evaluated at the start of training and followed for nine months:
Odds ratio 5.1 (95% CI 2.68–9.70, P<0.001) that a sesamoid with possibly significant sesamoiditis also showed concurrent possibly significant subclinical ultrasonographic suspensory ligament branch change.
Odds ratio 11.7 (95% CI 4.1–33.4, P<0.001) that the concurrent presence of both findings preceded the subsequent development of clinical signs of suspensory ligament branch injury.
The bone finding and the ligament finding travel together — and it is the pair, not the radiograph alone, that carries the strongest warning.
A separate retrospective case-control study reviewed presale radiographs of 291 clinically normal yearling Thoroughbreds and followed their first year of race training. A radiographic diagnosis of severe — grade 3 to 4 — sesamoiditis on the modified Spike-Pierce scale was associated with a five times greater risk of developing clinical suspensory ligament branch injury in the adjacent branch during training. Notably, that significant relationship was observed using only one of the three grading scales tested, which tells you something important about how much the choice of scale matters.
The scale of the problem in young horses
Research on 896 juvenile Thoroughbreds in training put the prevalence of suspensory branch injury at around 9.5%. Within that population, juveniles with significant ultrasonographic changes in their branches as yearlings were up to five times more likely to sustain a clinical branch injury than yearlings whose branches were ultrasonographically normal — and that risk rose to roughly eleven times when both the branch and the adjacent sesamoid were abnormal as a yearling.
Read that sequence carefully, because it contains the practical instruction. The radiograph alone gives you a moderate signal. The branch ultrasound alone gives you a moderate signal. The two together give you the strongest signal available — and only one of those two examinations is routinely included in a sales repository.
The question to ask your vet
Not "does he have sesamoiditis?" but "what grade, on which scale, and what does the ultrasound of the adjacent suspensory branch show?" A grade without a branch scan is half an answer, and it is the less informative half.
What the sales repository data says
The largest recent dataset comes from a prospective cohort of 2,508 yearlings and 436 two-year-olds enrolled from a Thoroughbred yearling sale and five subsequent two-year-old sales, with racing performance tracked from two to four years of age. The conclusion identified grade 3 vascular channels, forelimb sesamoid abaxial new bone and forelimb sesamoid fragments as the important findings in sales repository radiology — and in yearlings, these were associated with a significantly reduced probability of starting a race.
For horses that did race, grade 3 vascular channels in forelimb sesamoids were associated with fewer race starts, and grade 3 changes in hindlimb sesamoids with a delayed start to the racing career. An earlier study of two-year-olds at in-training sales similarly found the odds of starting a race or earning money were lower for horses with sesamoiditis than for horses without radiographic abnormalities.
| Finding | How common | What the evidence associates it with |
|---|---|---|
| Vascular channels present | Universal — every sesamoid | Normal anatomy; not a finding on its own |
| Mild channel change (low grade) | Very common in yearlings | Weak and inconsistent associations with performance |
| Grade 3 vascular channels | Less common | Reduced probability of starting a race; fewer starts in forelimbs |
| Grade 3–4 (modified Spike-Pierce) | Less common | 5× risk of clinical suspensory branch injury in training |
| Abaxial new bone formation | Less common | Identified as an important repository finding |
| Sesamoid fragments | Less common | Important repository finding; apical fragments often removed pre-sale |
| Sesamoid + branch both abnormal | Uncommon | ~11× odds of subsequent clinical branch injury |
A note on fragments. In the yearling cohort, pre-sale arthroscopic fragment removal was performed on 70.6% of yearlings with apical fragments and 8.7% of those with abaxial fragments. Apical fragments were removed in their entirety in 83.3% of pre-sale surgery cases, but in 16.7% a partial fragment or residual mineralisation remained visible on the sales radiographs. If you are reading a repository film, prior surgery is part of what you are looking at.
Two Completely Different Horses Get the Same Word
A great deal of confusion around this diagnosis comes from the fact that "sesamoiditis" is applied to two situations that have almost nothing in common clinically. Working out which one you are in should be the first thing you do.
Situation one: the sound horse with a radiographic finding
This is the yearling at a sale, the horse being vetted for purchase, or the animal whose fetlock was radiographed for an unrelated reason. He is not lame. Nobody would have looked at his sesamoids if a camera had not been pointed at them. The finding is a probability statement about the future, not a description of a current problem.
For this horse the correct response is graded, not binary. Low-grade channel change is extremely common and the associations with performance are weak and inconsistent. Grade 3 changes, abaxial new bone or fragments justify a closer look — and specifically an ultrasound of the adjacent suspensory branch, because that is the examination that converts a moderate signal into a strong one.
Situation two: the lame horse with clinically active sesamoiditis
This horse is a different animal entirely. He is lame, the lameness localises to the fetlock region, and there may be heat, swelling and pain on palpation over the sesamoid area and the suspensory branches. Here the finding is not a probability — it is the problem, or at least sits alongside it.
Veterinary sources describe the prognosis for racing soundness or high-level athletic performance in clinically active sesamoiditis as unfavourable. That is a hard sentence, and it is worth confronting early rather than discovering it eighteen months and several thousand pounds later. It does not mean the horse has no future; it means the target should be set honestly, and a change of job is a legitimate outcome rather than a failure.
Why this distinction governs everything else
The sound horse with a finding needs surveillance — a branch ultrasound, a sensible training plan and a re-scan. The lame horse with active disease needs treatment — rest, controlled exercise, and a veterinary plan built around the soft tissue. Supportive comfort measures have a place in the second group and very little to do in the first.
How Sesamoiditis Is Diagnosed — And the Block That Confuses Everyone
Diagnosis rests on a combination: the characteristic radiographic changes, lameness that localises to the fetlock area, and — the part that catches people out — fetlock lameness that does not localise intra-articularly with a fetlock joint block.
Why a negative joint block is a clue, not a dead end
Owners frequently report that the vet blocked the fetlock joint and the horse stayed lame, and conclude the fetlock has been ruled out. In sesamoiditis it has not. The pain is generated at the non-articular surface of the sesamoid and at the ligamentous attachment, which lies outside the joint capsule. Local anaesthetic placed inside the joint does not reach it. A horse who blocks out to a lower limb block but not to an intra-articular fetlock block is pointing directly at the structures this article is about.
The examination that is routinely missing
Ultrasound of the suspensory ligament is described as often normal in sesamoiditis — which is precisely why the subclinical branch change studies matter so much. "Normal on a standard scan" and "normal on a careful branch-specific scan graded against a scale" are not the same claim. The research that produced the odds ratios above used deliberate ultrasonographic examination of the branches, not an incidental look.
- Lameness that worsens with work and localises to the fetlock region
- Heat and swelling over the back and sides of the fetlock, particularly over the branch course
- Pain on direct palpation of the abaxial sesamoid surface and the suspensory branch insertion
- No response to an intra-articular fetlock block, but response to a lower limb block
- Radiographic vascular channel change, abaxial new bone, or lysis penetrating from the abaxial surface
- Filling or thickening of one branch compared with the opposite side — often the earliest visible asymmetry
A single sign proves nothing. The combination, in a young horse in early training or a mature horse who has stepped up in work, is the picture.
Where Red Light Therapy Actually Fits — And Where It Does Not
Having spent four sections establishing that this is a ligament problem wearing a bone's name, the role of red light therapy for sesamoiditis becomes much easier to define honestly.
What light cannot do here
It cannot remodel the inside of a sesamoid bone. Vascular channels are intraosseous structures within a dense, small bone. Nothing about photobiomodulation reaches or reorganises them.
It cannot change a radiographic grade. There is no evidence for this and no mechanism to propose. If a device is marketed as improving repository films, that claim is unsupported.
It cannot substitute for rest. Suspensory branch healing is governed by controlled exercise over months. No adjunct shortens ligament biology.
The penetration question, answered honestly
Marketing for light devices routinely claims near-infrared reaches five to ten centimetres into tissue. The peer-reviewed picture is far more conservative: one review of photobiomodulation parameters places red wavelengths at roughly 0.5 to 1 mm and near-infrared at around 2 mm before losing 37% of intensity, with skin-optics modelling putting 850 nm at approximately 2.4 mm. Some reviewers argue the critical light–tissue interaction occurs in the skin at capillary level, with effects on deeper structures being secondary, chemically-mediated events.
For most of the horse's body that is a serious limitation. For the fetlock it is less of one, and this is the genuinely favourable part of the anatomy. Our full breakdown of how deep red light penetrates a horse's leg works through the numbers in detail.
The target light can genuinely reach: the branch, not the bone
The distal limb of the horse has very little soft tissue covering. The suspensory ligament branches run down either side of the cannon bone and pass over the abaxial surfaces of the sesamoids at the fetlock — and you can feel them. A vet palpating for branch pain is pressing on a structure lying directly beneath the skin, not probing through muscle. That superficial position is exactly what makes it a plausible photobiomodulation target when the interior of the sesamoid is not.
The same logic applies to the broader soft tissue picture, which is why the general principles in our guide to red light therapy for horse ligament injury transfer directly to the branch region. What changes in sesamoiditis is the specificity of the target: not "the leg," but a defined attachment zone at the back and side of the fetlock.
The signal from how vets treat this region
A clinical trial published in JAVMA evaluated injection of platelet- and leukocyte-rich plasma at the junction of the proximal sesamoid bone and the suspensory ligament branch for yearling Thoroughbreds with proximal sesamoid bone inflammation and associated suspensory ligament branch desmitis. Note the target: not the bone, not the joint, but the bone–ligament junction. That is the anatomical zone the whole condition revolves around — and it is the zone closest to the skin surface.
What the evidence base does and does not support
There is no clinical trial of red light therapy for equine sesamoiditis. Anyone who tells you otherwise is overstating the literature. What exists is indirect: systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised placebo-controlled trials in human knee osteoarthritis has found statistically significant reductions in pain for photobiomodulation compared with sham, with reported effective dosing in the region of 4 to 8 J per treatment spot at 785–860 nm and 1 to 3 J at 904 nm. Broader reviews of photobiomodulation report effects across wound healing, pain management and tissue repair, with the underlying cellular mechanisms conserved across mammals.
That is an argument for comfort and soft-tissue support, not for structural repair of a ligament attachment or for anything happening inside a bone. Treat it as such and the tool sits comfortably in the plan. Treat it as a therapy for sesamoiditis itself and you will be disappointed, and you may delay the veterinary work that actually changes the outcome.
A Practical Protocol for a Sesamoiditis Horse
The framing that makes red light therapy for sesamoiditis useful is narrow and specific: you are supporting the suspensory branch region and the soft tissue around the back of the fetlock during a rehabilitation period that is being driven by rest and controlled exercise.
Where to place the device
The target is the palmar and abaxial fetlock region — the back and sides of the joint, over the course of the suspensory branches down to their attachment on the sesamoids. This is not the front of the fetlock, which is where you would work an osselet or dorsal joint problem. Run your thumb down the groove between the cannon bone and the flexor tendons and follow the branch as it divides and passes to either side; that path is the treatment zone.
Because the branches are on both the medial and lateral sides, a format that wraps circumferentially around the fetlock covers the anatomy better than a flat pad applied to one aspect. Coverage of both branches matters, since injuries are frequently unilateral within a limb and the asymmetry is part of what you are monitoring.
Timing it around the rehabilitation plan
In an acute or recently diagnosed case, the horse is likely on rest with a graduated walking programme. Light sessions fit either before controlled exercise, as part of preparing the tissue for load, or after, as part of a recovery routine. The point to be clear about: the exercise programme is the treatment and the light is an adjunct. Never let a device become a reason to advance the work faster than the vet prescribed.
Choosing hardware
| Target | Sensible format | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Suspensory branches at the fetlock | Wrap that encircles the fetlock | Covers medial and lateral branches in one session |
| Whole cannon and fetlock region | Red light therapy leg boots | Useful where the branch injury extends proximally up the suspensory body |
| Specific palpation findings | Handheld torch | Precise, but impractical for consistent daily use over a long rehab |
| Compensatory back or contralateral limb | Back pad or blanket | Long unilateral lameness loads the opposite limb and the topline |
On wavelength: red at around 660 nm is a surface wavelength and near-infrared in the 810–850 nm band is the one with any claim on tissue below the skin, which is why dual-wavelength arrays are standard. In the distal limb, where soft tissue cover is minimal, that distinction matters less than it does over a hindquarter — but fit matters more, because a wrap that gaps over a bony, mobile joint is delivering light to air.
What "working" looks like — and when to stop
Set the criteria before you start. Reasonable four-to-six-week markers: reduced heat and filling around the fetlock; less reactivity when the branch is palpated; a horse who is more comfortable at the start of a walk session. Unreasonable markers: change on a follow-up radiograph, a resolved vascular channel, or permission to skip a stage of the rehabilitation programme.
Stop and call your vet if: lameness worsens or appears at walk, new heat or filling develops over a branch, the fetlock drops or the pastern angle changes, or the horse becomes reluctant to bear weight. Sudden change in a suspensory branch under rehabilitation is a veterinary emergency assessment, not a cue to add another light session.
What This Should Never Replace
Red light therapy is not on the treatment ladder for this condition. The interventions that change outcomes in sesamoiditis and associated branch desmitis are veterinary. Broadly:
- Ultrasonographic assessment of the suspensory branch — the single most informative examination, and the one most often missing from a repository
- Rest and a structured controlled-exercise programme, which is what actually governs ligament healing
- Non-steroidal anti-inflammatories in the acute phase, under veterinary direction
- Orthobiologics — platelet- and leukocyte-rich plasma injected at the sesamoid–branch junction has been evaluated in a clinical trial in yearlings; mesenchymal stem cells have been used for branch desmitis in racehorses
- Corrective farriery to address foot balance and breakover contributing to uneven branch loading
- Arthroscopic fragment removal where sesamoid fragments are present, which is routine practice in sales yearlings
- Serial re-scanning to guide when work can be advanced — the decision point that matters most
One structural note about training. Research on the suspensory apparatus found that active training appeared to strengthen the suspensory ligament, shifting the weakest point of the apparatus from the ligament to the sesamoid bones, whereas in pasture-exercised or stalled horses the point of failure was most often the ligament itself. That is a reminder that neither total rest nor aggressive work is automatically the safe option, and that the shape of the rehabilitation programme is a genuinely technical decision. It belongs to your vet.
The Bottom Line
Sesamoiditis is a bone finding with a ligament problem underneath it. Every proximal sesamoid bone has vascular channels — a mean of 3.6 per bone on micro-CT — and a radiograph shows you only the larger ones. So the presence of the word on a report is close to meaningless on its own.
What carries signal is the grade and the branch. Grade 3 vascular channels, abaxial new bone and fragments were the findings that mattered in a cohort of over 2,500 yearlings. Grade 3 to 4 sesamoiditis carried a fivefold risk of clinical suspensory branch injury during training. And when the sesamoid and the adjacent branch were both abnormal, the odds of subsequent clinical branch injury rose to roughly eleven times. The ultrasound is the examination that turns a guess into a number.
And place red light therapy for sesamoiditis where it belongs. Not on the bone — it will not get there, and no honest reading of the literature says otherwise. On the suspensory branches running down the sides of the fetlock, which are superficial, palpable, and the actual site of the injury the radiograph was warning you about. Comfort support during a months-long controlled-exercise programme is a real contribution. It is simply not the same thing as treating sesamoiditis.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is sesamoiditis in a horse serious?
It depends almost entirely on the grade and on what the adjacent suspensory branch looks like. Mild vascular channel changes are extremely common — micro-CT work found every sesamoid examined had channels, averaging 3.6 per bone, with only 63.6% visible radiographically. Severe grade 3 to 4 sesamoiditis is a different matter: in yearling Thoroughbreds it was associated with a five times greater risk of clinical suspensory branch injury during training. The word itself tells you very little; the grade and a branch ultrasound tell you almost everything.
What is sesamoiditis in horses?
Inflammation and remodelling affecting the proximal sesamoid bones — the two small bones at the back of the fetlock that act as a pulley for the flexor tendons and anchor the suspensory ligament branches. Radiographically it shows as enlarged or increased vascular channels, bony proliferation on non-articular surfaces, and sometimes lysis penetrating from the abaxial surface. It is the most common finding on Thoroughbred yearling presale radiographs, and it is generally understood as a reaction at the suspensory branch attachment rather than a primary bone disease.
Can a horse with sesamoiditis still be ridden or race?
Many can, and mild changes are compatible with normal careers. The data is less reassuring at the severe end. In a cohort of 2,508 yearlings and 436 two-year-olds, grade 3 vascular channels, forelimb abaxial new bone and forelimb fragments were associated in yearlings with a significantly reduced probability of ever starting a race. Where sesamoiditis is clinically active with lameness localising to the fetlock, veterinary sources describe the prognosis for racing soundness or high-level performance as unfavourable. Decide on the grade, the branch scan and the intended job — not the label.
Does red light therapy help sesamoiditis?
It cannot reach or remodel the vascular channels inside the sesamoid, and there is no evidence it changes radiographic grade. Its plausible role is on the structure that actually drives the problem: the suspensory branch and its insertion on the abaxial sesamoid, which is palpable through the skin at the side of the fetlock. Treat it as a comfort and soft-tissue support measure alongside the rest, controlled exercise and veterinary treatment this condition requires — not as a treatment for the bone finding.
How long does sesamoiditis take to heal?
This is the wrong frame, and it is where most owners go wrong. The radiographic changes largely do not resolve — remodelled bone and enlarged channels tend to persist, and follow-up work tracking horses from yearling to two-year-old sales shows findings evolving rather than disappearing. What can improve is the soft tissue: an inflamed or damaged suspensory branch heals on ligament timescales, meaning months of controlled exercise rather than weeks. Ask for a branch-based timeline, not a bone-based one.
My vet blocked the fetlock joint and the horse was still lame — does that rule out the fetlock?
No, and in sesamoiditis it is a recognised diagnostic feature. The diagnosis rests on radiographic changes, lameness localising to the fetlock area, and fetlock lameness that does not localise intra-articularly with a fetlock joint block. The pain arises at the non-articular surface of the sesamoid and its ligamentous attachment, outside the joint capsule, so anaesthetic placed inside the joint does not reach it. A negative intra-articular block is a clue, not a dead end.
Should I buy a yearling with sesamoiditis on the repository radiographs?
That is a decision for you and your vet, but the evidence gives you a framework. Mild channel change is very common and channels are normal anatomy present in every sesamoid. The findings carrying weight in published sales data are grade 3 vascular channels, abaxial new bone and fragments. The strongest single predictor is not the radiograph alone: when both the sesamoid and the adjacent branch were abnormal as yearlings, odds of subsequent clinical branch injury rose to roughly eleven times. If the film raises a question, a branch ultrasound is the examination that answers it.
Is sesamoiditis the same as a sesamoid fracture?
No. Sesamoiditis is inflammatory and remodelling change within and around the bone, typically involving vascular channels and non-articular bony proliferation. A fracture is a break in the bone — apical, abaxial, mid-body or basilar — and is managed very differently; apical and abaxial fragments in sales yearlings are frequently removed arthroscopically before sale. The two can coexist and both appear in repository studies, but they are separate findings with separate prognoses.
Can I use red light therapy while my horse is on stall rest?
Yes, and stall rest is one of the more sensible settings for red light therapy — the horse is standing still and the region is easy to access. Photobiomodulation has no withdrawal period and no drug interactions, which matters if the horse is on NSAIDs or heading back to competition. The caveat is interpretive: while the horse is resting and medicated you cannot attribute improvement to the light, because rest is doing the heavy lifting. Use it for comfort, and judge the injury by the veterinary re-scan of the branch.
References
- Peat et al., Equine Veterinary Journal — Radiological findings in the proximal sesamoid bones of yearling and 2-year-old Thoroughbred sales horses: prevalence, progression and associations with racing performance (2,508 yearlings, 436 two-year-olds).
- Plevin S, McLellan J, O'Keeffe T — Association between sesamoiditis, subclinical ultrasonographic suspensory ligament branch change and subsequent clinical injury in yearling Thoroughbreds.
- McLellan J, Plevin S, Equine Veterinary Journal 2014;46:446–450 — Do radiographic signs of sesamoiditis in yearling Thoroughbreds predispose the development of suspensory ligament branch injury?
- Associations between the radiographic appearance of vascular channels in proximal sesamoid bones, their microstructural characteristics and past racing performance in Thoroughbreds (micro-CT study, 118 PSBs from 59 horses).
- Garrett KS, Bramlage LR, Spike-Pierce DL, Cohen ND, JAVMA 2013;243:120–125 — Injection of platelet- and leukocyte-rich plasma at the junction of the proximal sesamoid bone and the suspensory ligament branch.
- ScienceDirect veterinary topic reviews — Sesamoiditis: radiographic characterisation, diagnosis and prognosis.
- Physical Therapy (Oxford Academic) — Effectiveness of Photobiomodulation in Reducing Pain and Disability in Patients With Knee Osteoarthritis: A Systematic Review With Meta-Analysis.
- Review of light parameters and photobiomodulation efficacy (PMC) — penetration depth and dosing parameters.
Disclaimer: This article is educational and is not veterinary advice. Sesamoiditis requires radiographic diagnosis and ultrasonographic assessment of the adjacent suspensory ligament branch by a qualified veterinarian. Red light therapy is a supportive comfort modality; it does not alter bone remodelling or radiographic grade and is not a treatment for sesamoiditis or suspensory branch desmitis. Always consult your vet before adding any therapy to a lame horse's programme.
