Shockwave Therapy in Cheltenham

Painful sports injuries or pain caused by soft tissue or bone problems can seriously affect your ability to do daily activities, they can be difficult to manage and they can cause a great deal of stress and upset.

Shockwave therapy can target specific pain in the bones, joints, muscles, tendons and ligaments. It’s a non-invasive treatment that gives significant or total relief of pain in the vast majority of patients.

Shockwave therapy can target specific pain in the bones, joints, muscles, tendons and ligaments. Depending on the injury, patients can avoid invasive treatments such as steroid injections or surgery. It can be easily delivered, gives significant or total relief of pain in the vast majority of patients. Shockwave therapy is particularly effective for chronic tendonitis, plantar fasciitis and achilles or elbow tendonitis.

When you have shockwave treatment, we will use a hand held device connected to a machine that turns compressed air into sound waves. We will apply ultrasound gel to the skin beforehand to help transmit the shockwaves through the skin, and then apply some light pressure to move the device over the area that requires treatment.

what is shockwave therapy

Shockwave therapy isn’t new, it was developed in Germany in the late 1960s and was used mainly to treat kidney stones, but its use in the treatment of soft tissue injuries began in the 1990s. 

Shockwave therapy involves applying a probe directly onto the skin that covers the affected area, and it uses low energy sound waves, or acoustic waves to provide pain relief. It’s non-invasive, making it a safe and effective alternative to more invasive treatments. The shockwaves work by increasing blood flow to the injured area, breaking down calcified deposits, stimulating cells that generate new bone tissue, and reducing pain by overstimulating the nerve endings in the affected area. 

Shockwave therapy is recognised by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) as a non-invasive treatment for soft tissue injury that speeds up recovery and helps with acute or chronic pain. It is most effective when combined with a progressive rehabilitation program to gradually strengthen the local and supporting muscle groups. 

Shockwave therapy effectiveness is between 80% to 90%, depending on the area treated, this is because of its application system which can be easily targeted to the root of the injury. The treatment does not hurt much and does not hinder the patient’s daily activities and eliminates the need for steroid injections. 

It can be used as a stand-alone treatment or combined with a progressive exercise program to gradually strengthen the local and supporting muscle groups. It's a brilliant treatment to use when other treatments options have failed.

Scar tissue is formed when normal, healthy tissue is destroyed by injuries, diseases, surgeries, or infections, the lack of blood vessels in scar tissue makes it more difficult to heal and more prone to repeat injury. Using shockwave therapy to break up scar tissue is a great way to prevent repeated injuries and promote a more effective healing process.

In over 30-years of use and hundreds of studies, no serious or long-term complication has ever been observed with Shockwave Therapy. Minor complications such as slight swelling, redness, and/or tingling at the treatment site are possible, but they are short term and resolve quickly. If Shockwave Therapy happens to not work, it just does not work. You are not risking making anything worse and you still have the option for surgery or other treatments.