New Heel Pain Treatment Technology Can Take Away Your Pain and Save You Time AND Money

Everyone knows the “old school” treatment option for heel pain. It’s what your parents and grandparents might have called “sleep it off.”

Here’s how it goes: You get off your feet and rest them until they stop hurting. Take a few days off from playing sports or running. Use an ice pack if you have to. And stop being such a crybaby!

This treatment option has the advantage of being easy and free. And to be honest, a lot of the time it actually works. Minor heel pain often does go away with time. 

That said, the very fact that you choose to click on this blog probably means that the “old school” treatment option hasn’t been doing you much good. No matter what you do—rest, ice, massage, elevating your feet, changing your shoes—nothing seems to work.

So what does that leave you with?

Not so long ago, the last resort of the desperate chronic heel pain sufferer was surgery—a plantar fascia release, for example. It was either that, or just deal with your pain and keep making trips to the doctor or the physical therapist every time the pain got bad enough to keep you from getting through your day.

Fortunately, there’s now a better way—one that could save you a ton of time and money while providing quick relief.

Introducing Extracorporeal Pulse Activation Treatment

Extracorporeal pulse activation treatment, also known as EPAT (or more generically as “shockwave therapy,” though that term includes older and less sophisticated treatments) is an impressive, conservative treatment option that has an extremely high success rate for heel pain conditions—particularly plantar fasciitis. 

Even if your heel pain is severe, or has been plaguing you for months (or even years), there’s a great chance that EPAT will be able to help you.

Here’s how it works:

The EPAT machine generates pressure waves, which travel through the attached cable and hand-held applicator directly into your body. (“Extracorporeal” means “outside the body.”)

Those pulses travel deep into your injured tissues. They don’t hurt—at most, you might feel a little bit of aching soreness, and the intensity can be adjusted as needed. However, they do irritate your damaged tissue fibers just enough to trigger a rapid healing response from your body. 

What kind of healing response is that? Think reduction of pain and inflammation, increased metabolism and circulation, release of healing growth factors, and even break-up of scar tissue. Basically, it flushes out anything blocking the healing process and energizes neighboring cells to get to work repairing the damage.

How Does It Save Me Time?

The treatment process could not be faster or simpler.

An entire therapy session typically lasts only 15-20 minutes—sometimes as little as 5-10—depending on the size of the affected area. And most people require only three total treatment sessions, generally once per week (or every other week). That’s roughly an hour or less of office treatment time for the entire process.

And beyond that, there’s absolutely zero downtime. You walk into our office for treatment, and 20 minutes later (give or take) you walk right back out. No casting, no “reduced weight bearing,” no “take the rest of the day off.” You can literally visit on your lunch break and then go straight back to work, or whatever it was you were doing.

But really, saving time at the office isn’t nearly as important as helping you make better use of your time outside of it.

How many times have you had to cut the walk short, or take a pass on a golf trip with your friends, or otherwise scale back on your plans because heel pain held you back?

Thanks to EPAT, your heels will finally be feeling better, and you’ll be able to regain the lifestyle you really want to live. And you won’t have to be on the mend for 6+ weeks like you would after a surgery, either.

How Does It Save Me Money?

When you stop to add it all up, heel pain can cost you a lot more than you realize.

For starters, there’s the cost of going to the doctor every few months for another cortisone shot, or scheduling another visit from the physical therapist to help you with your stretches. (Or, of course, the cost of scheduling an elective surgery.)

But there are also hidden costs, particularly for inaction. Say you choose to simply live with your chronic heel pain, rather than do something about it—or you keep going back for PT or shots, but never truly get better.

Chances are good you’ll become less active over time, since your heel pain is a pretty powerful disincentive for getting exercise. And a reduction in activity is correlated with a whole host of medical conditions that not only lower your quality of life, but can also be quite expensive to deal with—diabetes, neuropathy, falls, stroke, heart disease … you get the idea.

The up-front cost for a full shockwave therapy treatment course is about $500—and that’s the “sticker price” without any insurance coverage. (Most insurance plans do not cover the treatment, unfortunately.)

We understand that may be a lot for some people, which is why we’re happy to work out payment plans if you need them.

But it’s also a heck of a lot cheaper then surgery or any other kind of treatment that requires hospitalization. And what you have to keep in mind is that this is an investment in your health—both now and in the future. Again, EPAT is highly effective and dramatically reduces heel pain for the vast majority of our patients. 

Simply put, if EPAT is ultimately the difference-maker you need to eliminate your pain, stay active, and stay healthy for the long haul? We might be biased, but we’d call that a huge bargain.

Are you struggling with heel pain every day? Are you ready to try something new—something that isn’t surgery, won’t interfere with your life, and has proven itself to be highly effective for the vast majority of patients?

If so, please give our office a call today at (405) 418-2676.