When pain starts interfering with the things you love, it’s easy to feel like your options are becoming increasingly limited.
Maybe you’ve tried rest. Physical therapy. Anti-inflammatory medications. Injections. Perhaps someone has even started talking to you about surgery.
But what if your body simply needs the right stimulus to restart the healing process?
That’s the conversation at the center of Episode 2 of Built to Heal, the podcast from Pinto Innovative Health & Wellness.
In “What Is StemWave?”, Dr. Emilie Pinto, Dr. Robert Pinto and Dr. Anne Pinto explore StemWave® focused shockwave therapy—what it is, how it works, why the Pinto team chose this particular technology, and how they’re using it to help appropriate patients dealing with stubborn musculoskeletal pain.
And perhaps most importantly, they discuss why pain relief isn’t necessarily the ultimate goal.
Getting you back to living your life is.
What Is Shockwave Therapy?
Despite its name, shockwave therapy doesn’t involve electricity being shocked into your body.
Instead, it uses high-energy acoustic waves delivered into targeted tissue. These waves create a mechanical stimulus that can initiate biological responses within the treatment area.
Shockwave technology itself isn’t new. Its medical roots include lithotripsy, the technology developed to break apart kidney stones without traditional surgery.
Over time, clinicians discovered that acoustic waves could have other applications within the body, particularly involving musculoskeletal tissue.
Today, shockwave therapy is used in orthopedic, sports medicine and rehabilitation settings for a variety of musculoskeletal conditions.
Why Would You Want to Stimulate an Area That Already Hurts?
It’s a good question.
We often think of inflammation as something that should always be eliminated.
Take an anti-inflammatory. Ice it. Rest it. Make the inflammation go away.
But inflammation is also part of the body’s natural healing response.
When an injury becomes chronic, that normal healing process may not always progress the way we’d like. One of the goals of shockwave therapy is to provide a controlled mechanical stimulus to the tissue and encourage a new biological response.
That’s an important distinction.
StemWave isn’t simply about masking the pain signal. The objective is to stimulate the area and work with the body’s own healing processes.
Not All Shockwave Therapy Is the Same
One of the most interesting parts of Episode 2 is the Pinto team’s discussion about the different types of shockwave technology.
You’ll commonly hear terms such as radial shockwave and focused shockwave.
While they’re frequently grouped together, they don’t deliver acoustic energy in exactly the same way.
At Pinto Innovative Health & Wellness, the team chose StemWave focused electrohydraulic shockwave technologyafter researching available systems.
One reason was the ability to deliver energy to deeper treatment areas—something particularly relevant when you’re working with larger joints and other deeper musculoskeletal structures.
The technology itself, however, is only one piece of the treatment.
Knowing where to treat matters just as much.
Finding the Pain Through “Mapping”
Before treatment, the Pinto team may ask a patient to perform a movement that reproduces their symptoms.
Maybe it’s a squat.
Maybe it’s bending.
Maybe it’s moving a shoulder through a particular range.
The StemWave applicator can then be used to systematically explore—or map—the area.
When the acoustic energy encounters a sensitive or dysfunctional area, the patient’s response can help the provider identify potential treatment targets.
Those areas can then be addressed before the patient repeats the original movement.
That before-and-after comparison can provide immediate feedback about how the body responds.
“Wait…Do That Again.”
Those can be some of the most exciting words to hear in the office.
During Episode 2, Dr. Bob shares the story of a woman in her 50s who worked as a waitress and was struggling with significant knee pain.
When she arrived, squatting was extremely difficult. She could only bend to approximately 20 degrees and reported her pain around a seven or eight out of ten.
The team mapped the knee and treated the identified areas with StemWave.
Then they asked her to squat again.
This time, she reportedly reached approximately a 90-degree squat with her pain reduced to around a two.
She was even able to climb stairs.
Experiences like this don’t mean everyone will have the same response—and individual results vary. But they demonstrate why the Pinto team became so interested in incorporating focused shockwave therapy into its approach to musculoskeletal care.
Can Shockwave Therapy Help You Avoid Surgery?
This is where the conversation becomes particularly important.
Surgery can be absolutely necessary and appropriate.
So can injections, medication and other conventional interventions.
The question isn’t whether one approach is universally “better.”
The better question is:
What is appropriate for this patient, with this condition, at this point in their healthcare journey?
For some patients, a non-invasive option such as focused shockwave therapy may be worth exploring before progressing to a more invasive intervention.
And that’s particularly appealing when chronic pain has begun affecting mobility.
Why Mobility Matters So Much
Pain has a way of creating a vicious cycle.
It hurts to move → you move less → you become weaker → movement becomes harder → you move even less.
Eventually, something that started as knee, hip, back, foot or shoulder pain can begin affecting your overall quality of life.
You stop walking as far.
You avoid stairs.
You give up golf.
You don’t exercise.
You decline the trip because you’re worried about keeping up.
This is why the Pinto team looks beyond a patient’s pain score.
What has the pain taken away from you?
That’s often the more meaningful question.
Maintaining mobility becomes increasingly important as we age. Strength, balance and movement help us remain independent and continue participating in the activities that give our lives meaning.
Reducing pain can be valuable—but restoring function is the bigger objective.
What Does StemWave Treatment Feel Like?
StemWave treatment isn’t necessarily sensation-free.
In fact, some sensitivity during the mapping process can help identify the areas that may need attention.
The Pinto team discusses keeping treatment discomfort within a manageable range and communicating with the patient throughout the session.
Treatment is also non-invasive. There are no surgical incisions, and the goal is to allow patients to continue moving while their treatment plan progresses.
How Many StemWave Treatments Will I Need?
There’s no single treatment schedule appropriate for every patient.
During the podcast, the Pinto team discusses a typical starting protocol of approximately eight sessions, often beginning more frequently and then spacing treatments farther apart.
However, the appropriate number and frequency depend on the patient, condition, response to treatment and overall rehabilitation plan.
Some patients may also benefit from incorporating rehabilitation or strengthening as their pain and function improve.
That’s an important part of the Pinto philosophy:
Feeling better creates an opportunity to become stronger.
If treatment improves your ability to move, the next step may be using that window to rebuild strength, mobility and function.
Who Might Be a Candidate for StemWave?
Focused shockwave therapy may be considered for a range of musculoskeletal complaints, but it isn’t appropriate for every person or every type of pain.
That’s why evaluation and mapping are so important.
Rather than simply selling someone a package of treatments and hoping for the best, the objective is to determine whether the painful area responds to the technology and whether StemWave makes sense as part of that patient’s broader treatment plan.
At Pinto Innovative Health & Wellness, that broader approach can include chiropractic care, physical medicine and rehabilitation, regenerative medicine, rehabilitation and other technologies when appropriate.
It’s not about forcing every patient into the same treatment. It’s about finding the right combination for the individual.
The Goal Isn’t Just to Hurt Less
One of the recurring themes throughout Built to Heal is that healthcare should be about more than chasing symptoms.
A painful knee isn’t simply a painful knee if it prevents you from exercising.
Back pain isn’t just back pain if you’ve stopped playing with your grandchildren.
A painful shoulder isn’t merely a shoulder problem if you’ve given up the sport you love.
At Pinto Innovative Health & Wellness, we want to understand why you’re hurting, what’s preventing you from healing and what we can do to help you regain function.
StemWave gives our providers another tool for doing exactly that.
Because your body was designed to do something remarkable:
Heal.
Sometimes it may just need the right stimulus.
Watch Built to Heal Episode 2: What Is StemWave?
Want to see the full conversation?
In Episode 2 of Built to Heal, Dr. Emilie Pinto, Dr. Robert Pinto and Dr. Anne Pinto go deeper into the science of shockwave therapy, explain why Pinto chose StemWave, discuss the mapping process and share real experiences from patients they’ve treated.
Watch Built to Heal Episode 2 on YouTube
Wondering whether StemWave might be appropriate for your pain?
Call our office at 757-220-8552 to learn more or schedule an evaluation.
Individual results vary. StemWave is not appropriate for every condition or patient. Evaluation by a qualified healthcare provider is necessary to determine whether treatment is appropriate for you. This article and podcast are provided for educational purposes and should not be considered a substitute for individualized medical advice.
