Differences between Child and Adult Sports Injuries
The young sportsperson is not a smaller version of an adult. Treating children, teenagers, and adolescents for sports related injuries requires expert knowledge about the patient’s development. Children’s bones, muscles, tendons, and ligaments are still developing, making them more susceptible to injury. Read more
As parents, we worry about our children’s eyes, teeth and other parts of our anatomy. We teach them washing, grooming and brushing their hair. But what do you do about your children’s feet? Their feet are still developing and have to carry their whole body’s weight for a lifespan. Their feet will walk thousands and thousands of kilometers in their lifetime! Read more
At Better Health, part of our mission statement is to find effective and innovative treatment options that can be used as an alternative to treatments such as medications, which can have terrible, unwanted side effects. It is important to remember that any oral medication that you ingest has to be metabolized by your liver. I have found that treating toenail fungus with laser is an effective, safe and successful way of eliminating the fungus in toenails.
Fungal infections of the toenails can be difficult to treat. The infection causes discoloured, ugly toenails that are often unsightly. Many of my patients describe it as embarrassing and ugly. Read more
Nearly 15% of Australians suffer from fungal nail disease. It is a fungal infection similar to Tinea pedis that lives on and under the nail bed and nail. These nails, can be hard to be trimmed as it commonly presents as a thickened brittle nail. The nail may turn yellow, brown or white depending on the colony of fungus affecting the nail. Read more
Shock wave therapy uses pressure waves to treat various musculoskeletal conditions. It is a non-invasive method to treat chronic soft tissue conditions such as Heel and Arch pain. High-energy acoustic waves (shock waves) deliver a mechanical force to the body’s tissues. Read more
Fungal nail infection of the toenail (onychomycosis) is a difficult to treat condition. The infection causes discolored, ugly toe nails that can be very unsightly. The treatment is challenging because the beasties live in the nail bed (the part that we can’t see, beneath the skin). Topical therapies are largely ineffective because they don’t penetrate into the nail bed, and the period of treatment is generally so long that poor compliance in using the topical treatment. Read more
About 15-25% of us suffer from some kind of fungal nail infection or Onychomycosis which is its proper name. A typical first sign is a white or yellow spot under the tip of the nail. As it spreads the nail becomes more discoloured. It may also thicken and develop a distorted shape and the edges may become brittle and deteriorate. Read more
Do you ever wake up with severe heel pain, especially when you take your first few steps out of bed in the morning? Commonly, heel pain is caused by inflammation of the plantar fascia. This is a ligament, a tough band of tissue that supports the bottom of your foot and connects your heel bone to the balls of your feet and your toes. The stabbing or burning pain of plantar fasciitis is usually worse in the morning because the fascia tightens overnight. You may find that the pain can reduce and become more tolerable after your foot has warmed up with a bit of walking or exercising, however it usually returns after an hour or so later? Read more
Shock Wave Treatment or ESWT (“E” standing for extracorporeal) stimulates your natural healing process by increasing blood supply and breaking up calcium deposits within tendons and ligaments.
A high-speed sound wave is generated within the shockwave gun. This then penetrates through the skin and into the area of pain. The characteristic migration of this wave is spherical and is often referred to as a ‘drop in a pond’ wave. This wave stimulates the tissues as it migrates in a radial (circular) fashion. As the sound wave ripples through the tissue it stimulates blood vessel production and scatters a blood factor called substance ‘P’. The extra blood allows healing to start at the area of complaint while the scattering of substance ‘P’ causes a relief from your discomfort.
Shockwave therapy
Known as extracorporeal shockwave therapy, this involves firing mechanical shockwaves into the sole of the foot to jump-start the healing process. The idea of using shockwaves to break up kidney stones has been around for 20 years or so, but only recently have we realised that it can also help heal tendons or ligaments, which is very exciting. While doctors don’t know exactly how it works, we think it creates controlled micro-damage stimulating the healing response which becomes retarded with long term chronic injuries such as heel pain associated with plantar fasciitis. For this reason it is most effective in patients who have had heel pain associated with plantar fasciitis for a long time — over six to 12 months. Here, the inflammation has settled down and the healing has stopped, but the patient still has chronic pain — not just a bit of pain in the morning. Read more