Extracorporeal Shockwave Therapy (ESWT)

With Chiropractor in Los Gatos, San Jose, SF Bay Area, CA

Get pain relief and improved function with shockwave therapy

Turn back time in your tendons, ligaments and joints with shockwave therapy

Increase range of motion with shockwave therapy

Get hope with this treatment of chronic conditions that seem to never go away

What Is Shockwave Therapy?

Sound, in the form of shock waves, can pulverize a kidney stone, shatter glass, view into the body and so much more. Now, the power of sound has reached new heights with extracorporeal shockwave therapy (ESWT) and this non-invasive as safe treatment is available in the SF Bay Area.

Piezowave Extracorporeal Shockwave Therapy with Dr Adam Fields in Los Gatos/San Jose, CA

Dr. Fields helping free up a tendon at the base of the neck with the application of a shockwave treatment.

Maybe you’ve used your joints, tendons and ligaments doing hard mountain biking in Los Gatos, running a half marathon in San Jose or just living the tech Bay Area lifestyle. The result could be acute or chronic conditions or overuse injuries. Life can be hard on your body but the application of shockwave therapy is safe and effective. Get rid of the pain and repair the damaged tissue that has resulted from many conditions.

With shockwave therapy, high energy acoustic (sound) shockwaves or high energy shock waves are sent into the treated tissue. Normal tissue ripples like the waves made in water when you throw a stone into a pond. Scar tissue and calcified fibroblasts are brittle and they break in the wake of the waves and high energy micro bubbles that are released in the tissue. This allows for angiogenesis, or blood to come back into the area, and tissue regeneration to take place. Life is literally coming back into the area treated. To even begin to break up scar tissue, before, I used to bruise people with deep pressure massage. The Piezowave 2 is a better more comfortable option that goes deep into the cells of the tissue without the effects of after-pain or bruises.

I’ve operated a chiropractic clinic for over 20 years in Los Gatos and San Jose and when giving chiropractic spinal adjustments people have often locked right back up again. With this non invasive shockwave treatment, joints stay more mobile and lubricated than with just a chiropractic treatment. Even if you are scheduled for a surgery, using shockwave therapy first and beginning to follow our rehab protocols is key. You may just prevent a surgery or give your surgery a high success rate.

Shockwave Has Been Shown To:

Reduce pain [23]

Aid in healing [26]

Re-establish blood flow [27]

A valid treatment for muscle stiffness and pain [24]

Increase tissue metabolism (“Low energy” tissue becomes normalized)[25]

Stimulate collagen production

Diagnose and treat myofascial trigger points [29]

Help dissolve calcific fibroblasts & scaring in treated tissue [28]

Reduction of Substance P (a pain generating neurotransmitter) [23]

Help heal non-union bone fractures with shockwaves

Conditions Successfully Helped with ESWT?

Achilles Tendonitis
Bunions
Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
Dog Injuries
Foot Pain/Morton’s Neuroma
Frozen Shoulder
Gamer’s Thumb
Golfer’s Thumb
Heel Pain/Plantar Fasciitis
Hip Pain/Bursitis
Jaw Pain/TMJ/TMD
Jumper’s Knee
Knee Osteoarthritis
Knee Pain
Low Back/Sacroiliac Joint Pain
Osteoarthritis
Pelvic Pain/Obturator Internus Tendon
Piriformis Syndrome
Shoulder Labral Tear
Shoulder Pain/Calcific Tendonitis
Surgical Scar Tissue
Tailbone/Coccyx Pain
Tendinopathy
Tennis Elbow
Trigger Finger

Normal Collagen Fibers

Normal flexible collagen fibers

Scar Tissue Fibers

Collagen with scar tissue

My Personal Story with Shockwave Therapy

First, let me start with my story. I have a history of a meniscus tear in my right knee that was related to the effects of poor shoe/pedal mechanics on a 36 mile mountain bike ride up Mount Hamilton in San Jose in 1999. This was an up and down climb with over 6,000 feet of elevation change and a lot of unwanted pressure on my knees. After the ride my knee locked up, I was in pain and an MRI confirmed a meniscus tear.
 That lead to a search for treatments. I had various medical and alternative treatments like extensive physical therapy, chiropractic, 12 PRP injections, Prolozone, etc.. Yet, still, I was suffering with significant chronic pain and a deep pressure in my knee. At one point I was even in the medical office of an orthopedic surgeon but, due to his explanation of the possible side effects and unpromising results for healing, I left his clinic without his surgical treatment.

With a trip to Zion National Park on the books, and some good pressure from my friends to do some intense canyoneering, I thought I would follow up on a suggestion to treat with shockwave therapy. Even though I had already had therapies that promised the breaking up of scar tissue, I still felt the shockwave therapy machine breaking up scar tissue during the treatment. The shockwaves got to the tissue that the other treatments hadn’t and shockwave therapy was giving me my life back. Were the other treatments valid? Yes, they helped the healing process and temporarily helped with the pain but I knew this treatment was doing something that my knee desperately needed.

It was nine of my closest guy friends from the Bay Area and a lot of mountains to climb. Normally, I would be extremely flared up with pain from something like this and I would avoid this kind of activity. To my astonishment, after 5 shockwave treatments with the Piezowave, I only felt a little sore. Since then, my knee is now 98% better.

Dr. Adam Fields's chiropractic office in in Los Gatos/San Jose, CA

Dr Adam Fields at Angel’s Landing and pain free after 5 visits with the Piezowave 2 ESWT.

So, I started sending my patients outside my clinic for the treatment (13 in a 2 month period). They were getting great results. It was like having a sports medicine doctor in my hip pocket. My clinic was thinning out because people were getting improvement elsewhere. I had no choice but to buy a machine to create this healing process in my clinic using ESWT. With the combination of over 20 years of chiropractic, deep rehabilitation experience, class IV laser therapy and the Piezowave 2, we are now helping patients like we never dreamed. The improvement is astounding!

Chronic musculoskeletal conditions and injuries, like mine, are now within reach and our people are being given their, feet [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6], elbows [7, 8, 9, 10], shoulders (like calcified shoulder tendonitis) [11, 12], bones [13, 14, 15], knees [16,17], achilles tendinopathy [18, 19], hips [20, 21, 22] and other parts of their bodies back again.

What Makes the Machine We Use Better?

When analyzing which machine to help people with, we did a lot of research to find the best high quality machine for the conditions we treat. We had reps come and use machines on us to experience, first hand, how they worked. There are four different ways to generated shockwaves for therapeutic use:

Piezowave ESWT machine at Dr Adam Fields' officeElectrohydraulic
Electromagnetic
Radial Pressure
Piezoelectric

Electrohydraulic, electromagnetic, and piezoelectric are legitimate extra-corporeal shockwave therapies (ESWT). The high energy pulse created by these technologies breaks the speed of sound and creates a shockwave. Without going too in-depth, each of these three sends a wave that goes to a controlled depth with a controlled intensity. The treatment area is only at the depth that is desired.

Radial shockwave therapy (or pressure therapy) is not specific and, from our experience, left us bruised and sore. Even though the machine was much cheaper, we didn’t want our patients to have the unwanted side effects. The radial shockwaves are low energy and go deep but spread as they entered the body. When working on areas such as the junction of the ribs and the sternum, for example, this machine is not specific enough and waves go to unwanted areas like lung tissue. Also, the shockwaves generated are around 10 meters per second compared to the others which break the sound barrier at 1500 meters per second. Radial shockwave is, thus, considered a pressure therapy and not a true shockwave therapy.

Why we use Piezowave 2 Shockwave therapy

The machine we will use on you, the Piezowave 2, has a greater ability to focus the sound waves to your injured tissue than any of the other technologies. This gives great benefit and yet requires us to have a knowledge of your injury and a deep understanding of the anatomy. Patients may very well feel some benefit after the first time the shockwave is used on your area of concern.

Your feedback when receiving the treatment is helpful and more accurate when receiving the care. When you feel a sensation or pain with the treatment, we will know that you are being treated in the right location and the discomfort you feel will not need anesthesia.

Piezoelectric is the highest quality of ESWT and the Piezowave 2…

Was made by the same company that makes the machines used to break up kidney stones.

Has multiple heads that allow us to do to the depth we need for your body part.

Piezoelectric means high energy and low energy waves that give greater precision in your body.

Allows us to increase or decrease the intensity depending your individual needs.

Contraindications to Extracorporeal Shockwave Therapy

(Realize that most of the information here regarding contraindications applies more to radial shockwave pressure therapy)

Patient on oral anti-platelet pharmaceuticals

Should not be used over cancer

A pregnant patient

Patient with advanced stage diabetes

Cortisone injections within 4 weeks of ESWT

Over open growth plate until bone reaches full maturity (more with radial shockwaves)

On top of open wounds or skin infection

Patients with a fitted pacemaker near treated site

Using anti-inflammatory drugs may slow down the healing process

Search our site for more information or get started on your healing and get results today.

Serving Los Gatos, San Jose, Saratoga, Campbell, Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Mt. View, Morgan Hill, Santa Clara, Silicon Valley, Fremont, Milpitas, Scotts Valley, Santa Cruz and more.

You can reach Dr Adam Fields for in-person (Los Gatos and San Jose, California) or telehealth appointments here.

 

About Chiropractor Dr Adam Fields

Dr Adam Fields is a practicing chiropractor in the Bay Area in Northern California and helps people daily in his office with many challenges that can be helped by shockwave therapy from tendinopathies, arthritis, cartilage regeneration, post surgical scar tissue, pelvic pain, altered biomechanics and more. He uses Endonasal Cranial Adjusting, the Muncie Technique, Extracorporeal Shockwave Therapy (ESWT), Class IV Laser Therapy, posture correction, lifestyle modification, muscle work, and other techniques to help his patients.

Shockwave Therapy Research

The following are related articles that were sited:

  1. Buch M, Knorr U, Fleming L, Theodore G, Amendola A, Bachmann C, Zingas C, Siebert WE: Extracorporeal shockwave therapy in symptomatic heel spurs. An overview. Orthopade. 2002, 31 (7): 637-44. 10.1007/s00132-002-0323-z.PubMedView ArticleGoogle Scholar.
  2. Perez M, Weiner R, Gilley JC: Application of extracorporeal shockwave therapy for chronic plantar fasciitis. Clin Podi Med Surg. 2003, 20 (2): 323-34. 10.1016/S0891-8422(03)00002-8.View ArticleGoogle Scholar
  3. Roehrig GJ, Baumhauer J, DiGiovanni BF, Flemister AS: The role of extracorporeal shockwave on plantar fasciitis. Foot Ankle Clin. 2005, 10 (4): 699-712. 10.1016/j.fcl.2005.06.002.PubMedView ArticleGoogle Scholar
  4. Strash WW, Perez RR: Extracorporeal shockwave therapy for chronic proximal plantar fasciitis. Clin Podi Med Surg. 2002, 19 (4): 467-76. 10.1016/S0891-8422(02)00016-2.View ArticleGoogle Scholar
  5. Thomson CE, Crawford F, Murray GD: The effectiveness of extra corporeal shockwave therapy for plantar heel pain: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC Musculoskelet Disord. 2005, 6: 19-10.1186/1471-2474-6-19.PubMed CentralPubMedView ArticleGoogle Scholar
  6. Wilner JM, Strash WW: Extracorporeal shockwave therapy for plantar fasciitis and other musculoskeletal conditions utilizing the Ossatron-an update. Clin Podi Med Surg. 2004, 21 (3): 441-7. 10.1016/j.cpm.2004.03.002.View ArticleGoogle Scholar Los Gatos
  7. Buchbinder R, Green SE, Youd JM, Assendelft WJ, Barnsley L, Smidt N: Systematic review of the efficacy and safety of shock wave therapy for lateral elbow pain. J Rheum. 2006, 33 (7): 1351-63.PubMedGoogle Scholar
  8. Rompe JD, Theis C, Maffulli N: Shock wave treatment for tennis elbow. Orthopade. 2005, 34 (6): 567-70. 10.1007/s00132-005-0805-x.PubMedView ArticleGoogle Scholar
  9. Rompe JD, Maffulli N: Repetitive shock wave therapy for lateral elbow tendinopathy (tennis elbow): a systematic and qualitative analysis. Br Med Bulletin. 2007, 83: 355-78. 10.1093/bmb/ldm019.View ArticleGoogle Scholar
  10. Stasinopoulos D, Johnson MI: Effectiveness of extracorporeal shock wave therapy for tennis elbow (lateral epicondylitis or extensor carpi radialis brevis tendinopathies). Br J Sports Med. 2005, 39 (3): 132-6. 10.1136/bjsm.2004.015545.PubMed CentralPubMedView ArticleGoogle Scholar
  11.  Mouzopoulos G, Stamatakos M, Mouzopoulos D, Tzurbakis M: Extracorporeal shock wave treatment for shoulder calcific tendonitis: a systematic review. Skeletal Radiol. 2007, 36 (9): 803-11. 10.1007/s00256-007-0297-3.PubMedView ArticleGoogle Scholar
  12. Spindler A, Berman A, Lucero E, Braier M: Extracorporeal shock wave treatment for chronic calcific tendinitis of the shoulder. J Rheum. 1998, 25 (6): 1161-3.PubMedGoogle Scholar
  13. Cacchio A, Giordano L, Colafarina O, Rompe JD, Tavernese E, Ioppolo F, Flamini S, Spacca G, Santilli V: Extracorporeal shock-wave therapy compared with surgery for hypertrophic long-bone nonunions. J Bone Joint Surg -Am. 2009, 91 (11): 2589-97. 10.2106/JBJS.H.00841. [Erratum appears in J Bone Joint Surg Am. 2010 May;92(5):1241]PubMedView ArticleGoogle Scholar
  14. Elster EA, Stojadinovic A, Forsberg J, Shawen S, Andersen RC, Schaden W: Extracorporeal shock wave therapy for nonunion of the tibia. J Orthop Trauma. 2010, 24 (3): 133-41. 10.1097/BOT.0b013e3181b26470.PubMedView ArticleGoogle Scholar
  15. Xu ZH, Jiang Q, Chen DY, Xiong J, Shi DQ, Yuan T, Zhu XL: Extracorporeal shock wave treatment in nonunions of long bone fractures. Int Orthop. 2009, 33 (3): 789-93. 10.1007/s00264-008-0553-8.PubMed CentralPubMedView ArticleGoogle
  16. Scholar van Leeuwen MT, Zwerver J, van den Akker-Scheek I: Extracorporeal shockwave therapy for patellar tendinopathy: a review of the literature. Br J Sports Med. 2009, 43 (3): 163-8.PubMedView ArticleGoogle Scholar
  17. Vulpiani MC, Vetrano M, Savoia V, Di Pangrazio E, Trischitta D, Ferretti A: Jumper’s knee treatment with ESWT: a long-term follow-up observational study. J Sports Med Physical Fitness. 2007, 47 (3): 323-8.Google Scholar
  18. Rasmussen S, Christensen M, Mathiesen I, Simonson O: Shockwave therapy for chronic Achilles tendinopathy: a double-blind, randomized clinical trial of efficacy. Acta Orthop. 2008, 79 (2): 249-56. 10.1080/17453670710015058.PubMedView ArticleGoogle Scholar
  19. Furia JP: High-energy ESWT as a treatment for chronic noninsertional Achilles tendinopathy. Am J Sports Med. 2008, 36 (3): 502-8.PubMedView ArticleGoogle Scholar
  20. Alves EM, Angrisani AT, Santiage MB: The use of extracorporeal shock waves in the treatment of osteonecrosis of the femoral head: a systematic review. Clin Rheuma. 2009, 28 (11): 1247-51. 10.1007/s10067-009-1231-y.View ArticleGoogle
  21. Scholar Kong FR, Liang YJ, Oin SG, Li JJ, Li XL: Clinical application of extracorporeal shock wave to repair and reconstruct osseous tissue framework in the treatment of avascular necrosis of the femoral head (ANFH). Zhongguo Gushang. 2010, 23 (1): 12-5.PubMedGoogle Scholar
  22. Wang CJ, Wang FS, Huang CC, Yang KD, Weng LH, Huang HY: Treatment for osteonecrosis of the femoral head: comparison of extracorporeal shock waves with core decompression and bone-grafting. J Bone Joint Surg – Am. 2005, 87 (11): 2380-7. 10.2106/JBJS.E.00174.PubMedView ArticleGoogle Scholar
  23. Christoph Schmitz1,2 and Rocco DePace Pain relief by extracorporeal shockwave therapy: an update on the current understanding2Urol Res. 2009 Aug; 37(4): 231–234.
  24. Lee JY, Kim SN, Lee IS, Jung H, Lee KS, Koh SE. Effects of ESWT on spasticity in patients after brain injury: a meta-analysis. Journal of Physical Therapy Science 2014; 26(10): 1641-1647. [PMC free article] [PubMed]
  25. Morrissey D, Jones E, Riley GP, Langberg H, Screen HR: In vivo biological response to extracorporeal shockwave therapy in human tendinopathy. Eur Cell Mater. 2015 May 15;29:268-80; discussion 280
  26. Mittermayr R1, Antonic V, Hartinger J, Kaufmann H, Redl H, Téot L, Stojadinovic A, Schaden W.Extracorporeal shock wave therapy (ESWT) for wound healing: technology, mechanisms, and clinical efficacy.Wound Repair Regen. 2012 Jul-Aug;20(4):456-65. doi: 10.1111/j.1524-475X.2012.00796.x. Epub 2012 May 29.
  27. Bosch G1, Lin YL, van Schie HT, van De Lest CH, Barneveld A, van Weeren PR.Effect of extracorporeal shock wave therapy on the biochemical composition and metabolic activity of tenocytes in normal tendinous structures in ponies. Equine Veterinary Journal 39(3):226-31 · June 2007 with 17 Reads DOI: 10.2746/042516407X180408 · Source: PubMed
  28. Gerdesmyer L, Wagenpfeil S, Haake M, et al. ESWT for the treatment of chronic calcifying tendonitis of the rotator cuff of the shoulder: a randomized controlled trial. JAMA. 2003; 290:2573-80
  29. Hye Min Ji, Ho Jeong Kim, Soo Jeong Han. Extracorporeal Shock Wave Therapy in Myofascial Pain Syndrome of Upper Trapezius. Article (PDF Available) in Annals of Rehabilitation Medicine 36(5):675-80 · October 2012 with 110 Reads DOI: 10.5535/arm.2012.36.5.675 · Source: PubMed
  30. Angela Notarnicola and Biagio Moretti. The biological effects of extracorporeal shock wave therapy (eswt) on tendon tissue. Journal of Muscles Ligaments and Tendons. 2012 Jan-Mar; 2(1): 33–37. NCBI