From serious sports injuries causing tissue damage to bone issues and stiffness that comes with age, living with pain is, well, a pain. But it's more than that - it's a stressful, often upsetting way to get through your day, month, and year. Have you ever tried to get out of bed with sore, stiff knees? Most folks would rather just get back in bed. Think you might try exercising with plantar fasciitis? Don't plan on running far or doing cardio for very long. Torn rotator cuff? Without proper treatment, your life might not ever be the same.
Living with pain and the inevitable issues that come with age can seriously affect your wellbeing and happiness. Sure, you could wake up every morning and rely on addicting medications to help you move. Or, you could risk further injury and damage with invasive surgeries that require long periods of recovery and downtime. But those can't be the only two options for treatment, can they?
Fortunately, a new, natural, non-invasive treatment for pain is revolutionizing the medical industry and transforming people's lives. It's giving athletes, average folks, and people of a certain age a reason to be hopeful. It's called Softwave therapy, and unlike many fly-by-night medications and sketchy treatments, it's backed by science and provided by Elite Healthcare Physical Medicine.
If you're barely making it through the day suffering from chronic pain, this FDA-approved drug-free treatment may be for you. Softwave therapy has already been used by thousands of people around the country living with issues like shoulder pain, knee pain, and plantar fasciitis. You could be next.
Though its popularity has only grown in recent years, Softwave therapy - also known as shockwave therapy - has been around for years. In fact, the first systematic study into the benefits of shockwave therapy took place way back in 1950. So, what is Softwave therapy?
Softwave therapy is a method of treatment that works incredibly well for mobility rehab, pain relief, and full-body recovery, usually from chronic pain or injuries. Softwave therapy uses a device emitting low-energy soundwaves that target a patient's injured area. These low-intensity waves boost blood flow and kickstart your body's natural healing processes, relieving long-term pain and helping your body to heal a wide range of injuries and conditions.
The main targets in the body include bones, tendons, and other soft tissues, which are encouraged to regenerate and repair via the shockwaves. Often, shockwave therapy is used in conjunction with other non-invasive treatments like chiropractic care, which we offer at Elite Healthcare Physical Medicine. The results are often incredible, leaving patients wondering why they never tried Softwave therapy before.
Softwave therapy works especially well for:
Better Blood Flow
Collagen Stimulation
Reducing Inflammation
Kickstarting cell growth and healing factors
Breaking down build-ups of calcium
With FDA clearance, little-to-no side effects, and quick application time, Softwave therapy is a welcome alternative for people suffering from pain. Who wants to spend weeks or months recovering from a surgery that might not even work? Likewise, who would want to become dependent on over-the-counter or, even worse, prescription pain meds? Living a life of addiction is a road nobody wants to go down.
Softwave therapy represents a revolution in non-invasive pain treatment; best of all, it's highly effective. Independent studies prove that shockwave therapy helps with pain. 65-91% of patients using shockwave therapy experienced real-deal improvements in damaged muscle and bone tissue, solving their mobility problems and drastically reducing pain. It almost sounds too good to be true, but as many patients at Elite Healthcare Physical Medicine will tell you - it isn't.
Book AppointmentSome of the most common conditions that Softwave therapy treats include:
When you get up in the morning and go to the bathroom to brush your teeth, do you notice a stabbing, sharp pain near your heel? Does the pain go away once you have a chance to walk around? If so, you could have plantar fasciitis. According to the American College of Foot and Ankle Surgeons, this painful condition is quite common. About two million people suffer from plantar fasciitis every year, and almost 10% of all people will experience the condition at least once in their life.
This common foot issue happens when the plantar fascia - a fan-shaped tissue near your heel - gets inflamed. The plantar fascia is a thick strip of connective tissue that links your toes to your heel bone, helping to preserve the arch of your foot. When this band is strained, it causes intensely sharp pain, usually in the morning when you wake up and plant your feet on the floor.
Most folks ignore plantar fasciitis because the pain eventually goes away throughout the day. However, if left untreated, plantar fasciitis can lead to weakness and chronic pain, which may affect daily walking.
Some causes of plantar fasciitis include:
The short answer to this question is not really. Patients with plantar fasciitis will ice the affected area with little-to-no relief since they spend so much time on their feet. It's hard to rest an achy heel if you've got a job that requires you to be on your feet. Anti-inflammatory meds like Advil don't work all that well, either. They may provide temporary pain relief, but in terms of a long-term solution, taking these drugs will cause major side effects.
Book AppointmentWhen more conservative treatment options like ice and over-the-counter meds don't work, most doctors turn to ultra-expensive orthotics, steroid injections, or invasive surgery. For the average person, those options fail on all fronts, as they carry risks for side effects and may even cause the issue to worsen.
Instead of going under the knife or changing their daily routines, many people suffering from plantar fasciitis are turning to Softwave therapy for relief.
During a shockwave therapy session, our expert providers use a special probe to deliver pressure waves to inflamed tissue. These waves trigger natural healing processes causing new blood vessels to form. In turn, oxygen is supplied to the affected area, reducing inflammation and causing healthy cells to regenerate. Shockwave therapy also produces collagen, which is crucial for connective tissue health.
With just a few visits, many patients find long-term relief from plantar fasciitis without relying on strange drugs or harmful surgeries.
Living with knee pain is just miserable. From knee tendonitis to osteoarthritis, knee pain can prevent you from enjoying activities and affect your day-to-day life. Your knee is a joint comprised of cartilage, bone, ligaments, and fluids. Tendons and muscles within the knee help the joint move. When one of these crucial knee structures is hurt or compromised, it results in knee pain and long-lasting knee problems. This, in turn, leads to difficulty walking at best and debilitating knee issues at worse.
If you're an active person or somebody who plays sports often, you're probably all too familiar with knee pain - especially common conditions like patellar tendinopathy. Also called "jumpers knee," this issue happens at the patellar tendon, which is found on the front of the knee just under the knee cap. When living with this condition, most patients experience pain around the kneecap or lower down on the leg around the tibia.
In addition to injuries and issues like jumper's knee, everyday wear and tear will cause knee pain over time. With time, this knee pain can develop into arthritis. If your knees are swollen, painful, or stiff, you may have arthritis in your knees. Regardless of the kind of knee pain you're experiencing, treatment options have been limited to agonizing surgeries and addicting pain medications. But that all changes with shockwave therapy for knee pain in John's Island, SC.
Though no two knee pain problems are exactly the same, shockwave therapy has been shown to be highly effective for knee pain. In fact, many patients at Elite Healthcare Physical Medicine find relief after just one session. Many times, sessions can be completed in as little as 30 minutes. So if you want to find relief for knee pain on your lunch break, that's definitely possible.
As is the case with plantar fasciitis, Softwave therapy works by sending sound wave and low-energy impulses to the affected area of your knee. These pulses stimulate your body's healing factors, which can help regenerate and repair damaged tendons and tissues. Softwave therapy for knee pain is especially promising for people who have tried other treatments - like surgery and pain meds - with disappointing results.
Benefits include:
Several studies and reviews prove that Softwave therapy can be very beneficial for people suffering from knee pain problems like jumper's knee. A study involving 66 patients with knee pain found that they enjoyed a significant improvement in their reported pain levels with Softwave therapy. In fact, knee pain was reduced by nearly 50% after a single month. When combined with other regenerative and physical therapy treatments at Elite Healthcare Physical Medicine, your days of living with knee pain are numbered.
Book AppointmentHere's a fact for you to consider: Every joint that you have in your body plays a part in your day-to-day life. But when we think of joint issues, we typically jump to knee issues. However, your knees aren't the only joints in your body to go through wear and tear. Your shoulders experience just as much, if not more, wear and tear than your knees. We put a strain on our shoulders just about every time we use or move our arms. Our shoulders play a pivotal part in living a normal life. When they begin to deteriorate over time due to age or overuse, it creates a litany of painful problems.
There are many causes of shoulder pain, like deterioration, inflammation, and trauma. Of the many painful shoulder conditions affecting Americans yearly, rotator cuff tendonitis and arthritis are very common. Also called calcific tendinitis, rotator cuff pain is caused by built-up calcium deposits on the shoulder's tendons, which connect your rotator cuff to nearby muscles and bones. This painful condition is usually linked to sports, like basketball and volleyball, or in professions requiring repetitive movements, like in the plumbing industry.
Some common symptoms of shoulder pain and rotator cuff tendinitis include:
Though strengthening exercises and some medications provide temporary relief for shoulder pain, they're not meant as long-term solutions. Luckily, Softwave therapy for rotator cuff pain in John's Island, SC, can help.
Shockwave therapy has been shown to work wonders for shoulder pain. Low-intensity shockwaves break up calcium deposits and jumpstart your body's healing processes, stimulating blood flow and healthy cell growth. Shockwave treatment is especially effective for long-term shoulder pain since it releases stem cells, sends growth factors to the affected area, and boosts capillary production. Shockwave therapy has also been shown to break down scar tissue and eliminate trigger points, all of which decrease shoulder pain. This relief is most often long-lasting, unlike other treatments like medications and injections.
Many studies support the efficacy of Softwave therapy for shoulder conditions like rotator cuff pain and calcific tendonitis of the shoulder. In a study of 84 patients living with long-term rotator cuff tendonitis, participants in the treatment group saw a significant decrease in the intensity of their shoulder pain. Another study related to shockwave therapy for calcific tendonitis found that 86.6% of patients experienced fewer calcifications.
If you're having to live with rotator cuff pain or another type of shoulder issue, choosing Softwave therapy may be your best course of action.
Book AppointmentWhether you're sick of living with intense heel pain from plantar fasciitis, the mobility issues associated with knee pain, or the day-to-day struggles of rotator cuff degeneration, you'll find hope at Elite Healthcare Physical Medicine. Unlike some medical clinics, our team of doctors and specialists focus on an integrative, multidisciplinary approach to healing. Instead of relying on addictive medications and invasive surgeries, we prefer to address the underlying causes that our patients face.
We combine several all-natural pain relief therapies so that your shoulder pain, knee pain, joint pain, and foot pain go away for good. We resolve pain by using healing treatments that restore function and improve mobility for the long term. Our state-of-the-art regenerative medicine treatments, used hand-in-hand with proven chiropractic techniques, will stimulate your body's healing power from within. If your pain is related to muscles, nerves, and bones, our doctors can help you overcome discomfort, injury, or medical conditions affecting these systems.
If you've been unable to resolve your pain or have become dependent on painkillers to cope, Softwave therapy may be the natural solution you need. It all starts with a quick call to our office, so we can begin to understand your needs. When you come for your first visit, our doctors will find the personalized treatment you need so that you can manage your pain in a non-invasive and drug-free environment manner.
Book AppointmentIf you’re looking to experience a different side of quintessential Charleston, consider visiting the Johns Island area for the day to spend time surrounded by nature and reset as the new year begins.Johns Island, the largest island in South Carolina, rests between Charleston and the Kiawah and Seabrook island communities. The area evokes a rural, off-the-beaten-path feel that’s ideal for outdoorsy folks, but it’s also got a few artsy hidden gems, including a community Art Walk.Here are some spots to check ...
If you’re looking to experience a different side of quintessential Charleston, consider visiting the Johns Island area for the day to spend time surrounded by nature and reset as the new year begins.
Johns Island, the largest island in South Carolina, rests between Charleston and the Kiawah and Seabrook island communities. The area evokes a rural, off-the-beaten-path feel that’s ideal for outdoorsy folks, but it’s also got a few artsy hidden gems, including a community Art Walk.
Here are some spots to check out in the John’s Island area:
Freshfields Village stands at the crossroads of Kiawah, Seabrook and Johns islands and hosts family oriented, pet-friendly community events throughout the year. This year the annual Art Walk takes place from 4-7 p.m. on Feb. 14, gathering art lovers and artists together for an evening of live art and live music. Attendees can see live art demonstrations, view works from local and visiting artists and browse the surrounding art shops.
There are a variety of free outdoor concerts coming up on the village green, including Blues by the Sea, which takes place 3-7 p.m. April 13 featuring blues bands from Mississippi, Florida and Houston, and Spring Music on the Green, which takes place 6-9 p.m. April 18 and features a four-piece party band.
Fun fact: One of the oldest independent bookstores in the Charleston area, Indigo Books, is tucked away in Freshfields Village.
Brewery and coffee roastery Estuary Beans & Barley is laid back and pet-friendly, with regular food trucks and live music from Charleston artists. For those who enjoy dancing, there’s the Swing n’ Brew event taking place 6:30-8:30 p.m. Jan. 22. Starting Feb. 2, the Sunday Sessions are back from 3-6 p.m. featuring music, poetry and comedy.
With high season about to kick back in, a handful of other hangouts on Johns Island will regularly host local live music including Tattooed Moose, Seanachai Whiskey and Cocktail Bar and Low Tide Brewing. Check out their social media pages to stay updated.
The iconic, ethereal Angel Oak Park should be at the top of any nature lovers list. The Angel Oak, which is 400-500 years old and known as the “Lowcountry Treasure,” stands at 65 feet high. It’s a holistic experience to stand beneath this ancient tree that has withstood centuries.
Johns Island County Park has beautiful walking trails as well as a disc golf course and a six-target archery range course. With the Mullet Hall Equestrian Center on site, it’s not unusual to see people riding horses, too. When the weather warms, Toast Under the Oaks live music series starts back up from 5:30-7:30 p.m. on March 6 and April 3.
Stono River County Park off of Main Road also has gorgeous walking trails with views of the marshland along the Stono River. This park is also the trailhead for the West Ashley Greenway.
While Folly Beach is the go-to, for those looking for an alternative beach-day experience when the weather warms up, it could be fun to post up at Kiawah Beachwalker Park before checking out a new place on Johns Island before heading back home.
JOHNS ISLAND, S.C. (WCSC) - Our Lady of Mercy Community Outreach on Johns Island is making sure adults know it is never too late to further their education with their GED program.The South Carolina Revenue and Fiscal Affairs office estimates over 315,000 adults in the state between 18 and 65 have less than a high school diploma from 2018 to 2022. Charleston County alone tallies just over 1...
JOHNS ISLAND, S.C. (WCSC) - Our Lady of Mercy Community Outreach on Johns Island is making sure adults know it is never too late to further their education with their GED program.
The South Carolina Revenue and Fiscal Affairs office estimates over 315,000 adults in the state between 18 and 65 have less than a high school diploma from 2018 to 2022. Charleston County alone tallies just over 18,000 in those numbers.
Adults 21 and older can sign up on the first day of the organization’s 14-week GED program starting Tuesday from 9 a.m. to noon.
The second day of registration takes place Jan. 21. Leaders say it is required for interested students to participate during the entire session to register. Registration will take place at the Johns Island branch at 1684 Brownswood Road.
Education Coordinator for Our Lady of Mercy Community Outreach, Lara Vo, says parents and older adults typically join the course. The education coordinator says older adults want to qualify for jobs with less physical labor. Vo says she finds the push for higher education inspiring.
“That self-determination and that empowerment within themselves to reach this goal because they feel like they deserve it, is something that I think is really inspiring and fairly common with a lot of our students,” Vo says. “We also have a lot of folks that are trying to get it because they want to improve their lifestyles.”
The organization partners with Charleston County School District’s Adult Education program. The program pays for testing fees for students which can run between $150 to $174 dollars in total depending on in-person or online testing.
Students also receive help through the organization’s career services.
“Once you get your GED, if you want, or even before you get your GED, we can meet with you and talk to you about resumes, interviews, things that you can do right now to improve your life if it’s coming for a job,” Vo says.
Other requirements for class registration include being 250% below the federal poverty line. The annual income for a family of four in this range is $78,000.
Leaders with the organization’s education outreach center have other programs available to the younger community. Volunteers participate in an after school academic support program in partnership with Angel Oak Elementary school. The program uses mentors to support 16 children from second to fifth grade on homework help and behavioral help.
Information on getting involved with the organization is on their website.
Copyright 2025 WCSC. All rights reserved.
JOHNS ISLAND, S.C. (WCBD) – City of Charleston council members approved Tuesday night nearly $12 million for a new fire station located on Johns Island.Station 23 is expected to have one engine and one ladder with eight people on staff. This comes as the city acquired the land several years ago and now have the final cost and contract. Station 17 is the only one operated by Charleston right now.“It allows us to start expanding ...
JOHNS ISLAND, S.C. (WCBD) – City of Charleston council members approved Tuesday night nearly $12 million for a new fire station located on Johns Island.
Station 23 is expected to have one engine and one ladder with eight people on staff. This comes as the city acquired the land several years ago and now have the final cost and contract. Station 17 is the only one operated by Charleston right now.
“It allows us to start expanding in the future,” Forrest Cockcroft, deputy chief of the Charleston Fire Department, said. “We have more plans for more stations as we go forward in years, but right now this is a big piece to get us more closely aligned with where we need to be with our response packages.”
As the second station comes in, the Johns Island area isn’t reliant on just Station 17. With the large service area, the city has been working with St. John’s Fire District to respond to calls through an auto-aide agreement.
“There are seven departments that are working in the auto aide group right now. We all respond under the ability to have the closest engine respond,” Cockcroft said. “So, on Johns Island that would be us and St. John’s Fire District, and we are able to not only to improve our coverage by sharing resources and sharing personnel – we’ve also been able to improve our response times through that.”
St. John’s Fire District is working on expanding as well. Both agencies are addressing the population growth on Johns Island by adding more stations.
“So with new fire stations comes new units and more firefighters. With one unit you can have several firefighters on scene within 5-10 minutes of every single fire and we’re trying to beat a national standard,” Ryan Kunitzer, fire chief of St. John’s Fire District, said. “We feel like we’re going in the right direction with that.”
The fire district is able to funded by Charleston County and has plans to get one new station and replace old stations.
“As the population grows, the fire district needs to grow along with it. Every year is our busiest year, so we need to effectively respond to everyone on Johns Island. We work with the city of Charleston in regard to that. So, we’re expanding on the southern end of Johns Island. We got some large neighborhoods going up so we’re adding fire stations there and some of our fire stations are getting old and need to replaced too,” Kunitzer said.
|Updated: Dec. 18, 2024 at 4:39 AM ESTJOHNS ISLAND, S.C. (WCSC) - Construction of a multi-million-dollar fire station on Johns Island that has been talked about for years is officially moving forward.This project took a significant step after the City of Charleston approved a construction manager at risk, or CMAR, contract during Tuesday night’s council meeting.A CMAR is when a construction manager agrees to take on a project and complete it within a set guaranteed maximum price, or GMP, and if construction service...
|Updated: Dec. 18, 2024 at 4:39 AM EST
JOHNS ISLAND, S.C. (WCSC) - Construction of a multi-million-dollar fire station on Johns Island that has been talked about for years is officially moving forward.
This project took a significant step after the City of Charleston approved a construction manager at risk, or CMAR, contract during Tuesday night’s council meeting.
A CMAR is when a construction manager agrees to take on a project and complete it within a set guaranteed maximum price, or GMP, and if construction services end up exceeding the GMP that was agreed upon, the construction manager is responsible for those costs.
The set GMP that City officials approved for the CMAR contract Tuesday night is $12.4 million.
Fire Station number 23 is planned to sit on Maybank Highway at Wildts Battery Boulevard. Plans call for it to include a training room, three bays and two units: an engine company and a ladder company. Officials say there would be four personnel working on each unit.
“To have enough apparatus and units to respond when we need it, so this will provide for growth as we go forward as well as we continue to plan for future growth beyond this,” Deputy Chief Forrest Cockcroft says. “But right now this will give us another engine and a ladder to really beef up that initial first response that we get on most of our fires, especially on our commercial fires.”
The Charleston Fire Department only has one station on Johns Island, which is Fire Station 17 located on Bohicket Road.
Cockcroft says that they currently have coverage of all of Johns Island between the Charleston Fire Department and St. Johns Fire Department, but they are looking ahead to meet the demand as the population grows by adding this new fire station.
“One of the things we try to look to is to make sure that we have the appropriate amount of personnel on scene for a structure fire or different type of call types, so we have some benchmarks that we try to meet with that and this will allow us to meet those benchmarks much more quickly because we’ve got much more density of stations going in and additional firefighters on the road,” Cockcroft says.
City of Charleston council member, Jim McBride, who represents Johns Island says that this new fire station will also help out other stations in the surrounding areas.
“Sometimes fire stations from James Island and West Ashley have to come augment us if there is a big fire, so getting this station on there on Maybank will actually free them up to focus more on their areas, so it impacts not just Johns Island, but also James Island and West Ashley,” McBride says.
McBride says that the City of Charleston Fire Chief, Dan Curia, has been working ahead and training two fire teams that will occupy the new fire station once it is built.
He says that they expect shovels in the ground for this project in early 2025 with it expected to be finished by the end of the year.
Copyright 2024 WCSC. All rights reserved.
A family homestead along River Road. A wooded tract near Main Road once used to train horses. An old cattle farm recently considered as a possible county burn site. These three medium-size tracts on Johns Island have different pasts but now share a common future, as their owners successfully worked with the Lowcountry Land Trust and Charleston County's Greenbelt Program to ensure they will remain in a largely undeveloped state.Each is worth celebrating on its own merits, but the combined effect of these three — along with two ot...
A family homestead along River Road. A wooded tract near Main Road once used to train horses. An old cattle farm recently considered as a possible county burn site. These three medium-size tracts on Johns Island have different pasts but now share a common future, as their owners successfully worked with the Lowcountry Land Trust and Charleston County's Greenbelt Program to ensure they will remain in a largely undeveloped state.
Each is worth celebrating on its own merits, but the combined effect of these three — along with two other recent greenbelt deals on Johns Island — show there's important momentum continuing to build to ensure that this Sea Island continues to retain part of its traditional, rural flavor, even as more new homes are built there every day.
And it's a sign that keeping Johns Island's character cannot be done by government alone, though zoning, urban growth boundaries and policies limiting infrastructure's spread are certainly important and vital tools. No, success also will require the support and cooperation of the landowners themselves, who should consider doing something similar to what the owners of the three properties mentioned above just did: value conservation work along with what financial return their property might bring them.
In two cases, the Johns Island conservation outcome was aided by owners willing to sell their land for somewhat less than what an appraisal said. In another, the owners retained the property and their two homes but agreed to a conservation easement to prevent any further development on their acreage in exchange for a $380,000 payment, less than half of what the concession is deemed to be worth.
The Lowcountry Land Trust took some risk on the front side assembling these deals, which not only will prevent development but also create new parks and walking trails for the island's growing population, according to Natalie Olson, the trust's Sea Islands program director. "My role is specifically focused on the Sea Islands, and it's been long recognized we need to increase the number of parks and outdoor recreational areas, especially on Johns Island, with the population growth there," she tells us. "Our goal is to protect the island's rural character by balancing growth with conservation."
Each project has its own story. The Barrier Islands Little League approached the trust a few years ago, noting it had too few ballfields to meet demand, and the organizations agreed to work together on a rural park the league could own and maintain in the long term. They found a 40-acre parcel on Main Road with a home and 13 nearby acres used for horses. The trust bought the land for $1.67 million, which the county's greenbelt program provided. The landowner discounted the price by $280,000, and the league agreed to use the farm area for about three to five new ballfields, while the house will provide restroom, office and concession space. Two thirds of the property will be left in its wooded state with new walking trails.
Just kitty-corner across Main Road, the trust worked with the owners of the 94-acre Grayson Oaks tract, a former cattle farm that the county had considered for a burn site a few years ago but met strong opposition. The trust was granted $2.9 million from the greenbelt program, and the S.C. Conservation Bank granted $600,000. Still, the $3.5 million purchase price was $500,000 below the appraised value. The trust plans to restrict its future use to farming, and create walking trails in the wooded portion of the property.
The 49-acre property known as Oscar's Place sits along River Road and includes two parcels with one home apiece, the owners of which wanted to maintain ownership but place restrictions on their property to ensure its forests and fields don't see any future development. The trust's conservation easement will do that, and we encourage the S.C. Conservation Bank to look favorably next month on chipping in to cover a portion of the easement cost, which also will protect the Johns Island park known as Mullet Hall next door.
The most exciting element is how these three deals just happened to come together at the same time, and we hope it spurs further interest in conservation on the Sea Island. "It's been really inspiring to see the response from the community because it's almost like there's a sense of hope and momentum toward the balance of growth and conservation we're seeing out here," Ms. Olson says.
These deals — and the many diverse benefits they offer — also underscore why Charleston County Council should include more money for greenbelts, parks and land conservation in its widely expected 2026 referendum to continue an existing half-percent sales tax.
And these three deals also illustrate that conservation should be valued not only for wildlife and protecting forests and farms and an area's traditional feel, but it also should be valued just as much for how it can improve our quality of life.
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