Shockwave Therapy:
What Does It Treat?
Here we take a look at two of the most common conditions we treat every day, with Shockwave Therapy. Experience reduced pain, lessen your dependance on medication and discover a new lease on life!
Foot Pain - How Does Shockwave Therapy Help?
Plantar fasciitis, foot pain, heel pain, are among the most common conditions successfully treated with Shockwave therapy. These conditions can manifest in various ways. Typically, individuals experience intense foot pain with the first few steps out of bed in the morning or heel pain after a long day of being active. Some describe the heel pain as feeling like stepping on a rock, resulting in a bruised sensation that persists. Others report a sharp or stabbing, almost ripping sensation in the arch of the foot, particularly when pushing off to take the next step. Some describe it as a general ache or an annoying pain that hinders foot use.
All these conditions and pain symptoms stem from inflammation in the soft tissues of the foot, including muscles, tendons, and ligaments. The foot contains over 100 muscles, tendons, and ligaments, and when they malfunction, they become inflamed and painful. Sometimes, there are even micro-tears in the plantar fascia itself. These issues are ultimately due to a lack of blood flow, which reduces the delivery of healing nutrients to the foot, affecting its health and vibrancy.
This is where Shockwave therapy becomes beneficial. Shockwave accelerates the healing process by increasing blood flow to the affected area, sending the body’s own stem cells to the damaged area. This rapidly accelerates the healing process.
Generally, one Shockwave session per week is planned.
To enhance the effectiveness of these sessions, strengthening and stretching exercises for the foot muscles, calf muscles, hip muscles, and even the core are incorporated. This holistic approach addresses the fact that foot pain often has roots beyond the foot itself.
Once treatment is completed, you’re given a clear plan of attack moving forward. Typically, monthly treatments are recommended to ensure that everything is maintained correctly. Monthly sessions help maintain proper practices and ensure increased blood flow to the area, preventing the recurrence of pain.
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Tennis Elbow - How Does Shockwave Help?
Tennis elbow is one of the most common and effectively treated symptoms that is addressed with Shockwave. Tennis elbow traditionally presents with pain on the outside of the elbow or the lateral side of the elbow. There’s also golfer’s elbow, which is pain on the inside of the elbow, that can also be treated very successfully by Shockwave.
What’s important to know about tennis elbow or golfer’s elbow is that it can occur even if someone doesn’t play tennis or golf. Sitting at a desk for a prolonged period, performing manual roles such as plumbing or carpentry, and weightlifting are all common causes of tennis and golfer’s elbow. The pain is most commonly due to the tendons around the elbow joint becoming inflamed.
An easy way to picture this is by imagining a very juicy filet mignon as a healthy muscle, then imagining a piece of beef jerky representing an unhealthy one: dried up, shriveled, hard, and not tender at all. That’s essentially what’s happening to the tendons around the elbow joint when those tendons get overworked. They go from filet mignon to beef jerky and become extremely painful. That’s when people try to do everything possible to avoid that sharp, stabby pain.
When Shockwave is sent to the inflamed area or when radial pulses are applied over the elbow, we’re getting into those tendons and we’re bringing tiny microtraumas to the area. Because tiny microtraumas are occurring around those tendons, it accelerates blood flow to the area. When blood flow, packed full of healing nutrients and the body’s own stem cells, is accelerated to any area, it rapidly increases the rate at which the tennis elbow starts to heal.
Another primary benefit of shockwave therapy is pain reduction. The shockwaves can desensitize nerve endings in the affected area, leading to a reduction in pain perception. Additionally, shockwave therapy can promote the release of endorphins – the body’s natural painkillers – which further ease discomfort.
Typically, one session a week for six weeks is recommended because a good five to six days between sessions are needed for the area to heal from Shockwave treatment so it can be done again. There has been no evidence suggesting that doing it faster or at less than a week’s interval will result in faster improvement. Evidence shows that after six weeks, the maximum improvements will be attained. After the six weeks are over, a regimen of postural strengthening, elbow strengthening, and shoulder girdle strengthening is usually continued to ensure the reason why the condition occurred in the first place is addressed.
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