Radial Wave and Laser Treatment for Foot Pain

Sheldon Nadal DPM performs a radial wave treatment and a laser treatment on a patient with foot pain.

501-586 Eglinton Avenue East
Toronto, ON M4P 1P2
(416) 486-9917

“This young gentleman is a basketball player named Kobe – not THAT Kobe, but a local Kobe who is getting ready to go to an international basketball and sports tournament and represent our country, Canada. Kobe injured his ankle three weeks ago and we’re doing our best to get him into shape so he can play ball and win a gold medal. And you can see the left ankle is considerably swollen, he did sprain his ankle, and we’re gonna give him two treatments. Well, we’ve already given him one treatment, a whirlpool, or hydrotherapy, treatment, and now I’m gonna give him a combination of sound wave treatment followed by a laser treatment. What we hope to do is help to reduce his swelling and encourage healing and get him back on his feet. This unit is the hand piece for a sound wave modality called radial wave or pressure wave. Some people call it radial shock wave. It’s not a true shock wave, but it is a very effective modality for reducing pain and inflammation. Kobe has pain inferior to the ankle, where the ligament is, but he also has pain up on the actual ankle bone which we call the lateral malleolus. Okay, faster. This is the therapeutic laser. We’re gonna start at the anterior aspect of the distal fibula where Kobe’s been getting a lot of pain. We’re gonna do two minutes here. The laser and the sound waves impart energy to the cells of the soft tissue. The energy gets absorbed by the chromophores in the cell, particularly with the laser, and that energy can then be used by the tissues for healing. It is believed that growth factors are released by the sound waves and those, too, help to reduce inflammation and encourage healing. Now I’m doing the lateral aspect of the distal fibula which is the ankle bone on the outside of the foot. With a severe ankle sprain, it’s actually possible – usually the ligaments will tear – and it’s actually possible to break the distal fibula if it’s a bad enough sprain. Another reason we’ve got to get Kobe better is because, in addition to playing in a very important tournament, he is being coached by none other than Digger Phelps, the great coach of Notre Dame. He has the honor of being yelled at by Digger Phelps. I wish I was going so that Digger Phelps could yell at me too. Okay, now we’re gonna do the posterior, or back, aspect of the distal fibula. And the super pulse helps to get the energy deep into the tissues. The anterior tailofibular area, where there’s a ligament that is probably one that is sprained in the injury. And now we’re gonna do the last part, the posterior aspect, the back of the ankle. The actual therapeutic part of the laser is invisible but what we can see is the red aiming beam. Okay, so, our treatment is finished, and Kobe’s gonna put a ceramic ankle support around his ankle. It will give him a little bit of support and a little bit of compression and there are ceramic particles which are supposed to reflect the body’s heat back into the body so it actually is somewhat therapeutic. And we’re gonna continue to give Kobe treatments until he goes and we’re hoping to get him back into top shape, or as good as possible.”