If you’ve lived with ongoing foot and/or ankle pain, making it difficult to keep up with your daily routine, and even walking and simple movements make your feet ache, you may wonder if surgery is the only answer.
The skilled podiatrist at Central Kansas Podiatry Associates, Dr. Benjamin Weaver, understands that your feet are critical to your overall health, and they’re responsible for your mobility and stability. There are many possible treatments for chronic foot and ankle pain, and Dr. Weaver believes in finding the least invasive and most effective way to restore comfort and strength to your feet, so you can move without pain. There are many modern treatments, including regenerative medicine and Synapep, that may help your foot pain without ever stepping into an operating room. Here, Dr. Weaver discusses possible treatments for your pain that don’t involve surgery.
Where We Start
Surgery is rarely the starting point for any foot or ankle pain. After Dr. Weaver evaluates your situation, symptoms, and pain, he will first look at conservative care, such as custom orthotics, footwear changes, physical therapy, stretching exercises, and anti-inflammatory medication. His goal is always to reduce pain while preserving the natural function and movement of your feet and ankles. Surgery requires recovery time, has risks, and can be disruptive to a patient’s life, so typically, surgery is only considered after other options have failed to provide a solution.
There are many reasons for foot and/or ankle pain that can be treated without surgery. Dr. Weaver will determine if you’ve developed plantar fasciitis, a tendon injury, have arthritis-related pain, or an overuse injury. If these conditions don’t respond to conservative treatment, there are regenerative medicine treatments that may help.
Types of Regenerative Treatments
At Central Kansas Podiatry Associates, we know that regenerative treatments can make a huge difference in our patients’ lives. Regenerative medicine uses the body’s own healing mechanisms to repair damaged tendons, ligaments, and joints in the foot and ankle. These are non-surgical alternative methods to help stimulate tissue repair at the cellular level to treat chronic pain, inflammation, and tissue degeneration by promoting natural healing instead of simply masking symptoms. Paired with a comprehensive plan tailored to a patient’s needs, regenerative medicine can be very effective. Here are a few of our regenerative treatments for chronic foot/ankle pain:
Synapep
Injuries to the foot/ankle can be difficult to heal because there’s less blood flow to these areas. Some podiatrists are now using a new oral peptide medication called Synapep BPC-157 (Synapep). It is designed to enhance the body’s repair process by delivering supportive proteins and signaling molecules directly to the affected area. This medication may speed recovery and reduce inflammation in the injured tissues, and it may also increase collagen production and enhance bone regeneration.
Remy Laser Therapy
Remy laser therapy is an FDA-approved advanced tool that’s often used to treat many conditions that cause foot and ankle pain. This laser therapy works by using laser light to stimulate your body’s natural healing and anti-inflammatory systems and accelerate cellular reproduction and growth, which is a primary factor in repairing the cells of cartilage, bone, tendons, ligaments, and muscle tissue. With Remy laser therapy, the light penetrates the skin and is absorbed by the skin cells, triggering the cell regeneration process.
The advantage of the Remy laser is that it offers extra control and flexibility over the therapeutic wavelengths that can be used to help resolve a variety of conditions. It enables Dr. Weaver to fine-tune the laser settings for each patient.
RedVive Red Light Therapy
Red light therapy, also known as photobiomodulation or low-level laser therapy (LLLT), exposes an area of the body to low-wavelength red light. This type of light penetrates through the skin and into deeper tissues, reducing pain and inflammation. When these light waves are used in targeted doses, they can have a healing effect on your foot/ankle pain.
Specifically, RedVive red light therapy emits specific wavelengths of light, which are absorbed by the skin and underlying tissues. This absorption triggers a series of biochemical reactions that enhance cellular energy production, reduce oxidative stress, and promote healing processes within the body.
Dr. Weaver knows other potential healing effects of RedVive red light therapy, which can include accelerated tissue healing for ligament injuries, such as ankle sprains, and improved range of motion and function.