Ultrasound machine

Anyone have an ultrasound machine at home??
Osteopath reckons my knee pain is tendonitis. Already got a knackered Achilles so not looking forward to rehab.

She mentioned ultrasound to aid the healing… But don’t really want to pay for someone to do just that (when it doesn’t seem overly technical).

Didn’t know if the off the shelf machines would be similar to the massage guns.

No, but:

“ There is little evidence that active ultrasound is more effective than placebo treatment for treating patients with pain or a range of musculoskeletal injuries, or for promoting soft tissue healing.”

I’m getting desperate :worried:

I don’t have a machine. I do have a sports injury guy I see regularly. He does massage, ultrasound, acupuncture. I had the ultrasound once, it did the square root of fuck all.

The acupuncture though. I will a converted. Could hardly walk one day to bring pain free the next. That’s some voodoo shit.

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The problem with tendinopathy/tendinitis is that to improve it really needs loading through the tendon.
You want it in a way that doesn’t irritate it much. Osteopaths aren’t often that great at guiding patients through this sort of work. Some are and I know a few who are but I know a lot more that are really quite poor.

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Yeah she did suggest some loading exercises.
I only went to osteopath as normal sports physio (who goes above and beyond to treat me) didn’t seem to be making be any inroads.

Any advice which practice might offer better insights??

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Have you been doing loading for the achilles?

Which part if the country are you in?

Oh and which tendon(s) are causing your knee pain?

You promised you’d never show that photo of me.

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Achilles… Not recently. But it’s something I have done on and off for many years.
Seated calf raises being top of the list.

Notts/Derby.

Medial? So assume the MCL. I can only trigger the pain either running or doing a hamstring stretch.

MCL is a ligament connecting the femur to the tibia. It’s not transferring force from a muscle and so it won’t be that.

I’m good on ligaments. Less so on tendons. So can say comfortably that it’s not the MCL but can’t help on what tendon it might be I’m afraid!

Argh really confused.

She said medial loads… And referenced it connecting 3 different muscles.

If it is medial it could be Pes Anserinus she is talking about? That is the joined tendons of semitendinosus (a hamstring muscle) gracilis and sartorius. It can be prone to bursitis, which can be diagnosed as tendinitis. Tendinopathy can be part of it and it is difficult to differentiate.

For the achilles I would aim to put more load than you could put through with a seated calf raise.

I know a good osteopath in Notts who has worked with quite a few top level sports people and Championship footy team. I can ask to see if there are more in the area if you want.

I have known people (patients) get good results from ultrasound despite what studies say. The reality is that people’s symptoms improve regardless of the research says.

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Any help, info, contacts greatly appreciated.

I went and got an ultrasound machine… On the basis it cant make things any worse.

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Out of interest, how much does one of those set you back?

This was the only one that kept popping up from generic shops (with mostly favourable reviews)

£150 :confused:

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A lot cheaper than I was thinking. Despite there maybe being no concrete evidence, the fact elite sports use ultrasound treatment quite frequently would say to me that there’s something in it.

Thats only three physio appointment fees, so not extortionate by that metric, especially as you can now use it much more frequently

As recommended by those well known athletes Eamonn and Ruth :grinning:

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There is an amazing amount of quackery in elite sport. I remember Tiger Woods causing outrage in the physio/physical therapy world when saying that his sacrum had popped out and the physio put it back in. Obviously nonsense. All sorts of things that have little scientific backing are often seen, was it Phelps with the cupping marks?

But as I keep saying what helps with people’s symptoms and what makes any difference physiologically are often world’s apart. Pain and actual tissue damage (or tissue change in healing) often don’t go together.

Phelps still does cupping long after retirement. See his pictures on IG with the marks.

I’m a cynical fuck. As I said above about acupuncture. I thought it was junk. I had a spasm in my lower back, could hardly walk. GP gave me valium for the pain and to relax the muscle. Then I had a session on acupuncture and the next day I was cured. No pain. I don’t the mechanism but it worked.

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