Dr. M. Pistor originated the technique of mesotherapy in France in 1952. Today, it is commonly practiced in France, where more than 15,000 practitioners utilize mesotherapy for the care of their human patients. Mesotherapy is also practiced in many other countries around the world, including: Belgium, Columbia, Argentina, and throughout Europe. This technique was introduced into the United States by veterinarian, Dr. Jean Marie Denoix, for the equine patient at the Veterinary Thoracolumbar Spine (Back) Seminar presented at Virginia Equine Imaging in the Spring of 2002.
Mesotherapy is a treatment that stimulates the mesoderm, the middle layer of the skin, which will, in turn relieve a wide variety of symptoms and ailments. The treatment is used to stimulate the Giant fibers. The technique involves the injection of substances to stimulate the mesoderm for various biological purposes. The mesotherapy injections involve extremely small needles that penetrate the interdermal layer of the skin only a very small depth, which is typically four to six millimeters. The number of treatments needed depends on many variables including the condition, the abnormal physiology causing the condition, as well as the chronicity of the problem.
A minimum of one to two sessions of mesotherapy is performed generally to assess the horse's response. Mesotherapy is effective for a multitude of conditions because it helps reverse the physiology of that condition, and stop the pain spasm cycle. At our clinic, we have used this technique on a number of horses with conditions such as chronic back pain and degenerative arthritis of the back and cervical vertebrae (neck).