Zap Foot Pain With Extracorporeal Shockwave Therapy

At Town Center Foot & Ankle, we know how much foot pain limits your life. Stubborn foot pain turns simple errands into big challenges. It’s difficult to fully enjoy excursions with friends and family, or just to get through a work day, with persistent foot pain.

Our Town Center Foot & Ankle team, led by expert podiatrist Dr. Stephen G. Eichelsdorfer, aka “Dr Ike,” treats both acute and chronic foot pain. We provide pain relief to patients from our convenient location in Kingwood, Texas.

Extracorporeal shockwave therapy (ESWT) is one of the tools we use to relieve chronic foot pain. 

Chronic soft tissue injuries lasting longer than six weeks often benefit from the reset effect of shockwave therapy.  If you’re coping with stubborn foot pain, you should know more about this type of treatment and how you may be able to benefit from it.

How ESWT works to relieve foot pain

ESWT addresses chronic musculoskeletal pain and is increasingly popular as an option for treating foot and ankle pain, especially plantar fasciitis. 

ESWT was first used to treat kidney stones, but works well in areas around your body. Treatment immediately relieves pain and inflammation and also has longer-term benefits.

The treatment accelerates your natural healing process by creating irritation in a targeted treatment area. Your body responds to the irritation with increased focus on healing. ESWT triggers your body to shift from a chronic to an acute response mode.

ESWT may include low and high energy acoustic shock waves. This noninvasive form of treatment can come in the form of targeted shock waves or radial pressure waves. ESWT is delivered with a handheld device or machine.

Your outpatient ESWT treatment doesn’t result in any side effects and also doesn’t require anesthesia or post-treatment downtime. You may need multiple treatment sessions, spaced one week apart, to experience the best possible pain relief.

What ESWT can treat

Foot pain arises from many causes. ESWT works to effectively relieve foot pain related to a variety of conditions, including:

• Chronic tendinitis
• Plantar fasciitis
• Achilles tendinitis
• Foot spurs

Shockwave therapy is less invasive than surgery or cortisone injections and may be able to spare you the inconvenience of a long rest period during recovery from your foot condition.

After treatment, your feet and ankles experience accelerated cell regeneration and collagen production, as well as improved circulation and new blood vessel formation. 

Stimulation of your nerves in the treatment area may reduce sensitivity. If you have any calcifications formed within your tendons, ESWT breaks them up so your body can naturally reabsorb the material.

We typically combine ESWT with other treatment approaches like physical therapy to build up foot, ankle, and leg strength. This type of therapy can give you the symptom relief you need to address underlying causes. 

ESWT also reduces your reliance on medication for pain management.

If your foot pain has lasted for more than six weeks and is the result of a soft-tissue condition like plantar fasciitis, talk to Dr. Ike about whether ESWT could help you with pain relief while undergoing treatment. 

You can schedule a consultation by calling our Town Center Foot & Ankle office in Kingwood, Texas, today or by requesting an appointment through our online system.