Like many soft tissue stress injuries, Achilles tendinitis typically develops over time, which means it can also take time to heal the damage. That’s time you don’t necessarily have, as you’re anxious to get back to a world where pain doesn’t accompany your every step.
At Aesthetic Podiatry & Sports Medicine Center, our team of foot health experts, led by Dr. Mariola Rivera and Dr. Lisa Shah, has a good deal of experience successfully helping our patients to move through nagging injuries like Achilles tendinitis.
While there are several ways in which we help patients navigate Achilles tendinitis, we want to focus on one in particular — amniotic membrane injections — which help your Achilles tendon to heal on a cellular level.
The Achilles tendon is the largest and strongest tendon in your body, and it connects your calf muscles to your heel. Anytime you see the suffix “-itis,” it means inflammation, so Achilles tendinitis describes inflammation in this connective tissue.
More specifically, tiny tears develop due to overstressing the tendon, and these tiny tears lead to inflammation. This inflammation, in turn, leads to the nagging pain that’s been following your every step.
While anyone can get Achilles tendinitis, it’s especially common among active people. The issue crops up in about one-quarter of athletes.
One of the main frustrations of Achilles tendinitis is that the condition can be tough to heal. Let’s face it, it’s hard to stay off your feet to give your Achilles tendon the rest it needs to heal properly.
Given that you still need to be somewhat mobile, our goal is to get your tendon through the four healing stages more quickly. These stages include:
To do this, we turn to regenerative medicine, which introduces orthobiologics that encourage faster and stronger healing.
More specifically, we turn to amniotic membrane injections, which are full of bioactive cells and molecules that provide the tools your tendon needs to cycle through the stages of healing.
The amniotic membrane injections come from amniotic fluid donors. Amniotic fluid is what supports fetal development. The injections contain signaling proteins called growth factors, which activate cell proliferation.
Using less scientific jargon, amniotic membrane injections introduce invaluable resources that your Achilles tendon can use to heal quickly and strongly.
In terms of timelines, everyone heals at their own pace, but most of our patients start to see results after 2-3 weeks. At the six-week mark, we can reassess to determine whether another round of amniotic membrane injections would be helpful or whether the initial treatment did its job.
If you’re tired of trying to wait it out with Achilles tendinitis, contact us online or by phone at one of our offices in Purchase or White Plains, New York, to explore whether amniotic membrane injections are right for you.
