Shockwave Therapy · St. Louis · Regen.MD physiotherapy
Shockwave Therapy:
restart a stalled tendon
Shockwave therapy fires acoustic pulses through a handheld applicator into a sore tendon or a muscle knot. Those pulses ease pain and jump-start healing in stuck tissue. Visits in the series sit at least seven days apart.
This one runs only on a physician’s written order, at the intensity that order specifies.
What is shockwave therapy?
Acoustic pulses travel from a handheld applicator into a sore tendon or a muscle knot.
What it does for you
The pulses quiet pain and push a stuck tendon back into an active healing cycle, one session per week at most, over several visits.
Its role around regenerative treatment
A chronic tendon is a repair that stopped partway. Shockwave can wake that repair up, and it can be used to prime the tissue before an orthobiologic treatment. Your physician sets the order and the timing.
The sensation, moment to moment
Firm, rapid tapping, briefly unpleasant at times. Your technician pauses for a pain score after each block of 500 pulses. Pink skin or a faint bruise later is common.
When this treatment is off the table
- Pregnancy
- Blood-thinning medicine or a bleeding condition
- A cancer or infection in that area
- Cortisone injected into that same spot within six weeks
- Growth plates still open near the area, in anyone under 18
- The chest, head or spine, or directly over a major artery or nerve
- A pacemaker
Your technician reads the safety questions aloud at every visit, and any change in your answers goes to the physician before a treatment starts. You may call a stop whenever you like.
Time involved
Budget about 10 minutes, at most once a week. The order sets the clock, not the machine.
What to remember
- Seven days minimum between sessions.
- Pain scores, every time we ask.
- Pink skin or a faint bruise later: expected.
Show us you have it: Before you go, describe your next step if the spot puffs up or bruises heavily. If a point is fuzzy, say so and we walk through it again with you.
Related reading: how pressure waves restart a stalled repair.
The rest of the treatment menu
- Cervical decompression table
- Clinical laser
- Hot or cold packs
- Spinal traction chair
- TENS in the clinic
- Vibration platform
Where this fits: the Regen.MD physiotherapy program, physician-directed rehab paired with our regenerative care. A physician must be in the building and reachable within moments before any treatment begins.