Degenerative joint disease is one of the biggest causes of poor performance and decreased competitive lifespan in horses.
IRAP is an anti-inflammatory therapy that blocks interleukin-1, a major inflammatory substance released from the body following an injury. Blocking inflammation can prevent further tissue injury.
IRAP is created by drawing the horse’s blood and incubating it with specially designed glass beads overnight. After processing the blood, IRAP is drawn into syringes for immediate treatment or frozen for later treatments. IRAP is useful in treating joint inflammation and arthritis and is effective in treating joints that have stopped responding well to more traditional intra-articular (joint) therapy.
IRAP therapy typically involves three joint injections at 7-day intervals. Most positive effects are seen after the second and the third treatment and the majority of horses will be sound after the third injection. Once sound, the horse can resume normal work. If inflammation or lameness returns after a period of time, any remaining frozen samples can be defrosted and the injections repeated. If lameness recurs, often a single injection will suffice, and it is unusual for most horses to need to repeat the full course of three injections.
