How Plantarcure works
Plantar fasciitis is a common cause of foot pain, characterised by pain at the base of the heel. The plantar fasciia is a thick bundle of fibres running from the toes to the heel. When damage is caused to these fibres, you can experience pain and stiffness at the base of the heel.
The PlantarCure device generates high-frequency waves which passes through the skin to the damaged fibres. Pain is transmitted as impulses in the large sensory fibres of the body and by applying a certain frequency to the area of pain, it interacts with the pain impulse transmissions, causing disruption. The pulse is effectively ‘scrambling’ the sensory impulses to the extent that they cannot be interpreted as pain signals by the brain.
In addition to the pain relieving effects of the device, the stimulation causes an increase in blood flow to the plantar fasciia which induces androgenesis in the tissues to speed up the healing process.
This is a treatment modality approved for many conditions by NICE, the National Institute for Health & Care Excellence.
Research & Studies
Several studies have investigated the use of this sort of therapy to treat both acute and chronic musculoskeletal pain in various parts of the body. The published study 'Pain Alleviation by Vibratory Stimulation’, by Lundburg, Nordemar and Ottoson from Karolinska Hospital in Stockholm, shows that shockwave therapy is an effective treatment for both chronic and acute pain. It also shows that it is ‘more effective in relieving pain than TENS‘.
- Pain alleviation by vibratory stimulation, Lundeberg et al, The Journal of Pain, 1984.
- Effect of vibratory stimulation on experimental and clinical pain, Lundeberg et al - Scandinavian Journal of Rehabilitative Medicine, 1988.
- Effects of vibratory stimulation on muscular pain threshold and blink response in human subjects, Pantaleo et al – Journal of Pain 1986.
- Vibration Anesthesia: Discussion.
- Vibratory stimulation for the alleviation of chronic pain, Acta Physiol Scand Suppl. 1983;523:1-51.
- Radial Extracorporeal Shockwave Therapy Is Safe and Effective in the Treatment of Chronic Recalcitrant Plantar Fasciitis.
- Extracorporeal shockwave therapy in symptomatic heel spurs. An overview