If you’ve experienced a painful sports injury or suffer from pain caused by problems with your bones or soft tissues, it can be tough to manage. Beyond the obvious stress and upset caused by such conditions, they can be debilitating and prevent you from living and loving life. In turn, this leads to you exercising less, which can cause other health issues, from weight gain to mental health problems.
Getting yourself back up and running after an injury, or finding an effective way to treat or manage a chronic condition is essential. While taking regular pain medication can help it’s not a long-term solution and has downsides of its own.
Shockwave therapy is an alternative and innovative therapy capable of targeting problem areas very specifically. That may be a particular bone, joint, or an area of muscles, ligaments and tendons. As a non-invasive treatment it doesn’t require much time and offers rapid relief for pain with minimal recovery time required.
We’re often asked how many shockwave therapy sessions will be needed. The succinct answer is, it depends, both on your particular condition and what you’re trying to achieve. To fully understand, however, it’s important to know how the therapy works.
How Does Shockwave Therapy Work?
Shockwave therapy is directly delivered to the affected area you need working on through the skin. It’s a form of pain relief therapy that utilises acoustic (or low energy) sound waves. These are ‘radial’ soundwaves that easily penetrate the skin. Once they are through the skin they radiate through your affected joint, muscle, or tendons as a shockwave. This makes shockwave therapy a highly targeted way to treat damaged or injured areas.
Shockwave therapy sessions consist of your therapist using a hand held device that is connected to a machine which turns compressed air into acoustic waves. The device will be applied to the problem area using light pressure, with ultrasound gel applied to the skin to ensure the shockwaves fully penetrate.
As the sound waves move through your body they stimulate blood flow, while also causing a mild and localised inflammation. In the days following treatment, your body naturally works to heal this inflammation and, in so doing, repairs and rejuvenates the cells in the problem area. Tissues that have been injured or damaged begin to repair as a result of treatment, reducing any associated pain.
As scar tissue is very elastic, unlike surrounding tissue, it doesn’t move in the same way and can diminish your range of motion. It can also cause pain. You will also find any scar tissue in the area is broken down by the shockwave therapy, further alleviating any pain you may feel, and improving your mobility.
How Many Shockwave Therapy Sessions Are Needed?
The healing triggered by a session means it’s important to leave time between – that’s where the magic happens. After your treatment you’ll be able to return to life as usual while your body starts the healing process. You should take it easy for the first 48 hours – avoid any high impact exercise like tennis or running.
To understand how many shockwave therapy sessions you’ll need, you need to consider recovery time between sessions, as well as how much progress is made in healing during the aftermath of each. Essentially, you’ll have a treatment, rest and heal, then repeat until the problem has been remedied or fully relieved.
During the days following treatment you might find you have redness or swelling in the area treated. This is perfectly normal, and you can treat any discomfort using paracetamol; just be sure to avoid any non-steroidal anti-inflammatory painkillers like ibuprofen. These will counteract the effects of your treatment and make the session useless.
You may find any pain in the area is worse in the immediate aftermath of a treatment, again, this is completely normal and will subside in a day or two.
For most patients, three to six shockwave therapy sessions are needed, with a week of rest in between, before they feel significant relief. The more severe your issue, the more treatments you’re likely to need.
For a clear understanding of exactly how many shockwave therapy sessions you’ll need, book an appointment today and one of our experts will assess your needs.
