Shockwave therapy for tendon pain ยท St. Louis
Shockwave therapy restarts healing in a tendon that has stalled, one strong tap at a time.
Shockwave therapy at painstl.com uses a handheld applicator to drive sound-wave pulses into a painful tendon or a knotted muscle. It calms pain and restarts the healing response in tissue that has stalled. Sessions are spaced at least a week apart, over a series your physician decides.
Nothing here happens without a physician’s order, and the order sets the strength. It runs only while a physician is on site and immediately available.
What happens in a session?
A handheld applicator fires sound-wave pulses into the sore tendon or tight muscle your physician targeted.
Why would your physician order it?
Tendons that have hurt for months often stop healing. The pulses calm pain and trigger a fresh repair response. For shoulder, hip and elbow tendons it can sit alongside image-guided injections or orthobiologic treatment, and it gives the muscles a calmer tendon to train against. See hip pain for one place it often fits.
What will you feel?
Firm, rapid tapping, briefly uncomfortable. Your technician pauses after each 500 pulses to get your pain score. The skin can look red or slightly bruised afterward.
When is it ruled out?
- Being pregnant
- Taking a blood thinner, or having a bleeding disorder
- A tumor or an infection where it would be used
- A steroid shot in that spot within 6 weeks
- Under 18, with open growth plates close by
- Over the chest, the head, the spine, or a major artery or nerve
- Having a pacemaker
Spoken safety questions open every visit. Any change since last time goes to the physician, who rules on it before the machine runs. Ask to stop whenever you want.
How much time to plan for
Plan on around 10 minutes; one session a week at most each time.
What to remember
- Weekly at most.
- Answer every pain-score check honestly.
- Some redness or a small bruise afterward is expected.
Last step. Show us you have it: Explain to your technician how you will handle swelling or bruising that seems bigger than it should be. Unsure about any step? We run through it with you again next time.
Related reading
- The painstl.com physiotherapy program, every station and test
- Shoulder pain
- Hip pain
- Heat and cold therapy, another station
- Vibration therapy, another station
- Traction chair, another station
- Neck decompression, another station
- Laser therapy, another station
- TENS (gentle electrical stimulation), another station
Ask whether this belongs in your plan
A physician reviews your history and your procedures first, then writes the orders. Nothing is added without a reason in your chart.
4479 Woodson Rd, Suite 401
St. Louis, MO 63134
Next to St. Louis Lambert International Airport, off I-70 at Woodson Road.