“Hi, my name is Dr. Mitchell Wachtel and today we’re going to talk about Achilles tendinitis. It’s a form of heel pain we see in our office a lot. Achilles tendinitis is very simply inflammation of a very thick tendon that is attached to the back of the heel. Pain can occur in the morning, in the middle of the day, or it can occur at the end of the day. Achilles tendinitis will sometimes occur in the back of the heel. It can be very-very painful at times. Sometimes it gets so painful that patients are hobbling throughout the entire day, other patients go through the day where their pain goes away and comes back at different parts of the day.

The Achilles tendon is the strongest tendon in your lower extremities. It attaches at the back of the heel and helps the plantar flexor, thus bringing the foot down when we walk. Unfortunately this area is torqued and pulled on a regular basis so the area can become inflamed and swollen.

There are a variety of treatments for this problem. One is we can put the patient in a cast to decrease pressure on the tendon. There are customized devices called orthotics in our practice that we can provide to the patient to decrease some of the swelling. There are also stretching exercises. And finally we have a very exciting new treatment in our practice called laser therapy. Laser therapy is exactly as it sounds, a laser that goes directly on the Achilles tendon area. It creates, on a cell level, healing. We’re getting very quick healing for patients that use laser therapy for Achilles tendinitis.

If you have these problems, come to our website and do some informational research regarding the laser, our practice, and give us a call.”