The new, non-operative treatment of chronic pain conditions, in particular calcifying tendonitis of the shoulder, tennis and golfer’s elbow, heel spurs and the painful heel.

Eliminating chronic pain without pain

Since the beginning of the Nineties shock waves have being used for the treatment on non-healing fractures. Later their application was extended to treatment of pain in soft tissues next to bone, on heels, elbows or shoulders.

Elbow – Tennis and Golfer’s elbow – Epicondylitis humeri radialis and ulnaris.

Application fields

Extracorporeal shock wave therapy is used to treat chronic and punctiform pain conditions, particularly in the bone-tendon region and in muscle attachments:

• Calcifying tendonitis of the shoulder
• Tennis and golfer’s elbow
• Painful heel
• Chronic inflammation of the tendon attachment of the shoulder joint
• Inflammation of the synovial bursa and of the tendon attachment of the hip-bone
• Burden-derived pain condition of the tibia edge
• Inflammation of the synovial bursa of the patellar tip
• Artificial joint (pseudo arthritis)

As a non-invasive method (no skin lesion) extracorporeal shock wave therapy offers a treatment alternative to operative interventions. Because of this, 60 to 85 % of the patient’s pain can be alleviated or even eliminated, according to the type of pain condition, thus making operations, anesthesia and hospitalization unnecessary. Furthermore there are no skin lesions.

Foot – Therapy on the Achilles tendon attachment and by plantar heel spurs – Plantar fasciitis with heel spurs

How does Extracorporeal Shock Wave therapy work?

The therapy unit produces by way of an external (extracorporeal) piezoelectric source high-energy sound waves. These are coupled to the body via water pads, directing the ultrasound energy towards the therapy region by ultrasound monitoring. By feeling the short pulses, the patient can help the doctor focus the shock waves on the region of maximum pain.

The patient-friendly therapy is ambulatory, gentle, and lasts around 15 minutes. The ability to continue to work and to participate in sport are normally possible the same or the following day.

The treatment is usually performed up to three times with an interval of one to two weeks.

Knee – Therapy on the patellar tendon attachment – Patellar tip syndrome.

Advantages

Compared with other conservative therapy methods the extracorporeal shock wave therapy offers the following advantages:

• No risk of allergic reaction
• No necessity for preparation or supervision of the patient
• Only ambulant treatment
• Rapid and particularly gentle treatment
• Only 1 to 3 treatments necessary
• Clear pain alleviation perceivable after ca. 10 days

Shoulder – Soft tissue therapy on the rotator cuff of the shoulder with and without calcification Tendinosis calcarea.

Healing with focused shock waves

We have a unit in the clinic which is the Piezoson 100 manufactured by Richard Wolf. It is a small, powerful system for extracorporeal shock wave therapy of all orthopaedic indications. The compact and mobile ESWT (extracorporeal shock wave therapy) unit is used to treat chronic pain and allows individual therapy options for:

• Shoulder pain
• Heel pain
• Elbow pain
• Pseudarthrosis

Please contact the Sports Injury Surgery office on 056 7723252 for more information.