Jeff LangmaidFounder, The Evidence Based Chiropractor

How Fast Does Shockwave Therapy Work?

7 Jan 2026 · 1 min

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0:35

A short recorded conversation on YouTube (Jan 7, 2026) in which Jeff Langmaid and another speaker discuss how quickly patients respond to shockwave therapy. The guest states shockwave is typically fast-acting: about 80% of patients feel improvement on the first visit, and if a patient has not significantly improved after about three to four visits, clinicians are likely missing an alternate diagnosis or factor.

Questions this video answers

About 80% of the time.

About three or four visits.

Chapters

But what's typically the expectation? There's some therapies out there where the patient doesn't feel a thing. And, you know, it's like. But it still might be doing something, I think of, you know, many times, laser or red light therapy. And there's other, you know, like a chiropractic adjustment where it's very clear most of the time, especially if it's done by hand, that something happened. Right. So from a patient perspective, how does shockwave play out.
Most of the time? And my general rule, based on the research that we have, is that if it's not significantly improving through shockwave within about three or four visits, we're likely missing something. So it's a very fast acting therapy. About 80% of the time, the patient will feel improvement the first visit.