Shockwave Therapy – The Better Alternative

R3 Integrative Health in Moncton specializes in Shockwave Therapy

Everyone with soft tissue injuries can benefit from Shockwave Therapy. Some common examples include hip/groin pain, rotator cuff tendonopathy, tennis and golfer’s elbow, patellar and Achilles tendonopathies and plantar fasciitis. Your body can heal most of these conditions with time but having some Shockwave Therapy treatment will accelerate the healing and get you back to your normal activity faster. In certain chronic conditions like calcification tendinitis, it has been proven to be just as effective as surgery!

HOW DOES SHOCKWAVE ACTUALLY WORK?

Very simply, Shockwave sends sound waves into the tissue causing a bit of micro-trauma which initiates the inflammatory or healing response. Often with a chronic injury the brain begins to accept the state of the tendon as the new normal state. This micro-trauma to the area will remind the brain it needs to continue healing in that area. The biggest effect Shockwave has been seen to have is actual regeneration of tissue including blood vessels in the affected area. The shockwave treatment continues to work even up to three months after the sessions are completed.

“Extracorporeal Shockwave Therapy has been around for many years. Shockwaves and their effects were accidentally discovered many years ago off a South Pacific beach.”

Years later, shockwaves were developed to treat kidney stones and eventually a German doctor showed the benefits of shockwaves on healing tendonopathies. Shockwave machines were brought into Canada in the mid 1980′s. These machines were very expensive for a clinic to purchase so the cost of treatment was extremely high. Thankfully, the machines have been made smaller, more compact and more affordable for clinics to purchase and use, in turn bringing the cost of treatment down to a reasonable price.

IS SHOCKWAVE LIKE ULTRASOUND?

No. Ultrasound does use sound waves but the big difference between Ultrasound and Shockwave Therapy is the intensity and power of the sound waves. When you have ultrasound applied you rarely feel anything during the application. With Shockwave you will feel the treatment. It is quite uncomfortable in spots. Those are the injured areas that need attention.

The patient will actually guide the therapista bit during treatment by the discomfort which assures the exact area of concern is being treated. Does it hurt? For some, yes. The Therapist will work within your tolerance and thankfully the actual shockwave application only takes about five minutes. As the affected area is treated, the patient usually will feel the pain diminish. Most shockwave sessions are an application of 2000 sound waves.

At R3 Integrative Health we will always treat the causative factors or structures first with NKT and manual work such as active release, and then apply Shockwave to the symptom site. By using this approach to treat the structures, tension is reduced into the symptom site making the Shockwave even more effective.

We are proud to offer the highest standard of massage therapy in the Greater Moncton Area. If you have any questions about Shockwave or our success with Shockwave please feel free to contact me directly.