New Way To Zap Away Tendinitis Pain
MIAMI (CBSMiami) – There's new way which serves as an alternative to medications and injections which some patients suffering from tendinitis are finding helpful.
Renee Janowicz says shoulder pain interfered with everything. It even kept her up at night. Karen Hosey suffered from the same kind of misery—but hers was in her elbow.
"I couldn't even lift a cup of coffee," said Janowicz.
Hosey and Janowicz are among millions of Americans who suffer from tendinitis—damaged tendons caused by repetitive activity or an injury.
"I couldn't take it. Everything that I did in my daily life came to a halt," said Hosey. "I work and I couldn't type without pain. I would wake up in the middle of the night."
In these types of cases there are micro-tears to a tendon which then become scar tissue. Hosey says the typical treatments, physical therapy and steroid injections, didn't work and she didn't want surgery.
She opted for a new procedure.
Dr. Thomas Plut, a sports medicine specialist, is treating tendinitis with a device called Tenex Health TX.
"It's really helped my patients a lot," said Dr. Plut. "The device is developed for chronic scar tissue pain throughout the body."
Dr. Plut said that with a local anesthetic there's then a tiny incision, followed by ultrasound imagery—the probe is guided to the injured tendon and ultrasonic energy breaks up and sucks out the damaged tissue.
"It's minimally invasive, small incision so because of that the healing time is quicker," said Dr. Plut. There is also, according to the doctor, less risk of infection and less post-procedure pain.
There are no stitches with the therapy that's mainly used on shoulders, elbows and feet and recovery is four to six weeks.
Hosey said the 20 minute procedure was quick and easy and she's slowly getting back into all her activities like exercise class and golf.
"I basically have my life back so it's been wonderful, absolutely wonderful," said Hosey.
Janowicz also had the procedure and, after a few weeks of building back her strength, she's back to moving easily, pain free.
