Shockwave Therapy: What It Treats, What It Costs, and Does It Actually Work?
The basics
If you’ve been dealing with a tendon problem that just wont budge, a heel that hurts with every first step in the morning, an elbow that flares up every time you pick up a coffee cup, a shoulder that’s been “Not quite right” for months, there’s a decent chance someone has mentioned shockwave to you. Maybe your Chiropractor or Physio brought it up. Maybe a friend swears by it. Maybe you Googled your symptoms at 11pm and it kept coming up.
So what actually is it, does it hurt, does it work, and what’s it going to cost you? Here’s the honest version.
What is Shockwave Therapy
Shockwave therapy uses a handheld device to deliver rapid pressure pulses into the injured tissue. A session is done during a normal consult with your Physio or Chiro and takes a matter of minutes.
How does Shockwave Therapy Work?
The pulses stimulate a biological response in tendon tissue that’s become stuck in a chronic, degenerated state. That seems to include increased blood flow to the area, a kind of controlled “restart” of the tissue’s own healing processes, and changes in how pain signals are being sent.
We’ll be straight with you, the exact mechanisms are still being studied and researchers don’t have every detail nailed down. What we do have is solid outcome evidence for certain conditions, which is really what matters when you’re the one in pain.
One other thing worth knowing: Shockwave is generally used for chronic problems – issues that have been hanging around for three months or more, rather than fresh, acute injuries. If you’ve rolled an ankle last week, this isn’t the tool. If you’ve had heel pain since Easter, it might be.
Does shockwave work for plantar fasciitis or tennis elbow?
There is strong evidence that shockwave therapy assist recovery for:
- Plantar fasciitis
- Lateral epicondylalgia/epicondylopathy (Tennis Elbow)
- Calcific tendinopathy of the shoulder
Across multiple clinical trials, a solid majority of people with chronic cases of these conditions report meaningful pain reduction after a course of treatment. That doesn’t mean everyone is pain-free and back to normal, but for stubborn, chronic cases that haven’t responded to the basics, “meaningful improvement in most people” is a genuinely good result.
Good-to-moderate evidence
For a second tier of conditions, the evidence is encouraging without being quite as strong:
- Achilles tendinopathy
- Gluteal tendinopathy
- Patellar tendinopathy (jumper’s knee)
- Some bone stress conditions.
In these cases, shockwave tends to be most useful as an option when a proper loading programme on its own has stalled. It’s not necessarily the first thing we’d reach for, but a reasonable next step.
Where we wouldn’t use Shockwave Therapy
We won’t sell you shockwave for everything, because it isn’t right for everything. It’s not indicated for acute injuries, and it’s not a general painkiller for non-tendon pain.
We avoid using it directly over major nerves or blood vessels in certain areas, during pregnancy, in people on certain blood-thinning medications, and over active infection. If any of that applies to you, we’ll flag it at assessment and being upfront about who shouldn’t have a treatment is as important as being upfront about who should.
Does shockwave therapy hurt?
Shockwave therapy is uncomfortable rather than outright painful. It feels like a rapid tapping sensation that gets surprisingly deep into the sore spot (which makes sense, because that’s exactly the point). The intensity is fully adjustable and controlled by your clinician throughout the session, so it’s dialled to what you can tolerate, not a fixed setting.
Afterwards, it’s common to feel some brief soreness or mild redness over the treated area. That typically settles within a day or two. Most people find the first session is the most “noticeable,” and by the second or third session they know what to expect and find it very manageable.
How many shockwave sessions do you need?
A typical course runs 3–6 sessions, usually spaced about a week apart. It’s rarely delivered as a standalone treatment — more on that below.
How much does Shockwave Therapy Cost?
Shockwave at VIBE is delivered as part of your normal consultation and if you have private health cover with extras (check your own level of cover for specifics).
Medicare, on the other hand, generally does not cover shockwave therapy.
Do you need loading rehab as well as Shockwave Therapy?
Here’s the part that matters most clinically, even though it’s the least exciting part to write about: shockwave on its own is a half-treatment.
Shockwave helps settle an irritated, degenerated tendon. It does not, by itself, fix the underlying reason the tendon broke down in the first place — which is almost always some combination of load, capacity, and how the tissue has been managed (or mismanaged) over months or years. That’s the job of a proper strengthening and loading program.
The clinical trials showing good results for shockwave almost always paired it with structured exercise rehab, not shockwave alone, and that’s not an accident.
To be blunt: if a clinic is offering you a “shockwave package” of sessions with no rehab programme attached, they’re selling you half of what actually works. We’d rather build you a course that includes both, even if that’s a less flashy sell.
If you’re dealing with one of the specific conditions above, it’s worth reading the condition-specific guide too — plantar fasciitis, tennis elbow, Achilles tendinopathy, gluteal tendinopathy, or rotator cuff / calcific shoulder pain — since the loading side of your rehab looks quite different depending on which tendon is involved.
What a shockwave course at VIBE looks like
We start with an assessment. The first question we’re answering is whether shockwave is actually the right tool for your specific condition and how long you’ve had it, not whether you’ll take a package. If it’s a good fit, the shockwave sessions run alongside your normal physio or chiro consults, with your loading programme built in and progressed at the same time.
We also build in review checkpoints. If there’s no meaningful change after about three sessions, we reassess rather than quietly continuing to bill you for more of the same — that might mean adjusting the rehab, adjusting the shockwave protocol, or deciding it’s not the right tool for you after all.
Wrap-up
If you’ve given a tendon problem three months of genuine effort, rest, activity modification, maybe some exercises – and it’s still not shifting, shockwave combined with proper loading rehab is a genuinely evidence-backed next step, particularly for plantar fasciitis, tennis elbow, and calcific shoulder pain.
Book an assessment at either of our clinics and we’ll give you a straight answer on whether you’re a good candidate. See our full treatments page for everything else we offer alongside it.