Edwardsville is the largest community we serve on the Illinois side, and it sits a few minutes from Anderson Hospital in Maryville, where Dr. Gurpreet Singh Padda, MD, MBA, MHP is on staff with full privileges. We are licensed in Illinois.
Edwardsville has a younger demographic profile than most of the communities around it, and the pain problems follow that profile. We see proportionally more sports and overuse injury here — tendon that has not healed, joint pain in people far too young for replacement, and nerve entrapments that were treated as muscle strain for months.
These respond to different treatment than degenerative spine pain does, and the distinction is worth understanding because the wrong category of treatment reliably disappoints.
Chronic tendon problems — the Achilles, the patellar tendon, tennis and golfer’s elbow, gluteal tendons at the hip — are frequently described as inflammation and treated accordingly. In the chronic phase that is usually not what is happening. The tissue has entered a failed healing state, with disorganized collagen and poor blood supply, and anti-inflammatories have little to work with.
Shockwave therapy targets that specific problem. Focused acoustic pressure waves delivered into the tissue provoke a repair response in tendon that has stopped progressing on its own. There is no anesthetic, no incision and no recovery period — you walk out and carry on with your day.
Photobiomodulation is often used alongside it where perfusion and inflammation are limiting healing.
The other pattern that shows up in younger, active patients is nerve entrapment. A peripheral nerve normally glides through the tissue around it. After injury, surgery or repetitive loading, it can become tethered in scar or thickened fascia. It then gets tugged rather than sliding, which produces burning, tingling or electrical pain that moves along the nerve’s course and is often mistaken for a muscle problem or referred spinal pain.
Hydrodissection addresses this directly. Under ultrasound, fluid is injected precisely into the plane between the nerve and the tissue binding it, separating the two and restoring the nerve’s ability to move. Ultrasound matters here specifically: it shows the nerve in real time and lets the release be watched as it happens, which a static image cannot do.
Where the entrapment involves the cluneal nerves over the back of the pelvis, it is regularly misdiagnosed as sacroiliac joint dysfunction or sciatica — see cluneal neuropathy and piriformis syndrome.
Our offices are in Missouri — 4477 Woodson Road, St. Louis and 12174 Natural Bridge Road, Bridgeton. From Edwardsville the usual route is I-55/70 west to I-270 west, then south toward the airport. Allow around thirty-five minutes outside rush hour.
Most patients arrive having already had an MRI and already been told what it shows. Imaging is a starting point, not a verdict — a large share of people with no pain whatsoever have disc abnormalities on MRI. What settles it is examination plus, where appropriate, a diagnostic block confirming the source before anything longer-lasting is committed to.
The other gap we see in younger, active patients is a knee, hip or shoulder that hurts enough to stop them running or lifting but is nowhere near bad enough for a surgeon to consider replacing it. Being told to come back in fifteen years is accurate and completely unhelpful.
Viscosupplementation and genicular nerve blocks both occupy that middle ground for the knee, and we are candid about the evidence for each rather than presenting them as equivalent. Neither reverses arthritis. What they can do is restore enough function to keep training while the decision about surgery stays yours and stays years away.
Tendon failure, nerve entrapment, joint instability and referred pain from an adjacent segment all produce pain in young, active people with unremarkable imaging. Each has a different treatment.
It is uncomfortable during delivery and settles quickly afterward. No anesthetic is used and there is no downtime.
It depends on the tissue and how long the problem has been present. Response is usually apparent within a few sessions, and if it is not helping we say so and change course rather than continuing indefinitely.
Most major plans and Medicare are accepted; Illinois-specific network plans vary. Benefits are verified before scheduling.
Call (314) 481-5000 or request an appointment. See also our Illinois pain management page.
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Same-day and emergency appointments are available.