Shockwave - what's it all about? - Chatteris Osteopaths

Shockwave - what's it all about?

Firstly - it really works!

We’ve been offering shockwave therapy at the clinic for around a year now and we have been extremely happy with the results – as have our patients.

Despite shockwave being a very effective and well-evidenced intervention, there was always going to be an element of uncertainty when offering a treatment to patients that we hadn’t offered before.

We could read all of the papers, journal and articles we liked which prove the effectiveness of this type of treatment, however as practitioners we needed to see the results ourselves before we were 100% convinced of its efficacy.

However I’m pleased to say that we are now convinced as we are getting some amazing results with shockwave at the clinic – particularly when combining a course of it with a graded exercise programme.

Back pain. Athletic woman in pink sportswear standing at the seaside rubbing the muscles of her lower back, cropped torso portrait.

Low section of mature man holding tennis racket while suffering from knee pain on red tennis court during summer

Man hands giving foot massage to yourself after a long walk, suffering from pain in heel spur, close up, indoors. Flat feet, leg fatigue, plantar fasciitis

Achilles tendon sprain cone in male athlete, close-up

woman suffering pain in the elbow. Composite of image arm bones and elbow

So what does it treat?

The thing that shockwave therapy is best known for is the treatment of long-term tendon problems – or ‘tendinopathies’ as they are known.

These include things like plantar fasciitis, rotator cuff problems, tennis elbow, Achilles strains, greater trochanteric pain and there are guidelines for these conditions as approved by NICE (the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence.)

However, there is increasing evidence that shockwave can help treat other conditions such as low back pain and arthritis and we have already been seeing the results of this in clinic.

Why do we like it so much?

The main reason that we like shockwave so much is that it works! However we also like the fact that it is a very minimally-invasive treatment with very few risks.

In fact he only real ‘risk’ or downside of shockwave that we can see is that it may not work – however with evidence showing its effectiveness can be anywhere between 60-90% the likelihood is that it will.

Shockwave has even saved a number of our patients requiring more invasive treatments such as injections or surgery as they have fully recovered after their treatment.