WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: New machine treats tendinitis, foot pain without surgery or anesthesia.

Alex Horjatschun was in excruciating pain from tendinitis, caused by a bone spur on his heel. On a scale of 1 to 10, it was a definite 10.

“I would get up off the couch and I would be limping,” he said, and it was difficult to do his workouts or stand for any length of time.

Normally, tendinitis and plantar fasciitis, which is closely related to tendinitis, are treated with surgery or with high-powered shock waves, both of which require anesthesia.

But Horjatschun is one of the first patients to be treated with a new machine that uses lower-level sound waves — the Storz Duolith SD1. “This machine has the benefits of having the patient direct you to the areas that hurt because it’s a midrange energy level that’s tolerable,” said Horjatschun’s podiatrist, Dr. David Caminear of Connecticut Orthopaedic Specialists.

Caminear was one of the authors of a double-blind study to test the Duolith, which recently received approval from the Food and Drug Administration. The study was published in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, “arguably the most prestigious orthopedic journal in the world,” Caminear said.

“I was a little skeptical of how it was going to work … but after the first treatment (the pain) seemed to really subside and after the third treatment it was like night and day,” said Horjatschun.

I hope it’s really as good as this sounds.