While ultrasound therapy is not effective for all chronic pain conditions, it may help reduce your pain if you have any of the following:
When you go in for ultrasound therapy, your therapist will select a small surface area to work on for anywhere from five to 10 minutes. A gel is applied either to the transducer head or to your skin, which helps the sound waves evenly penetrate the skin. During your ultrasound therapy treatment, your therapist will continually move the transducer head over and around the selected area.
Ultrasound therapy is deemed safe by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) provided it is performed by a licensed person and provided the therapist keeps the transducer head moving at all times. If the transducer head remains in one place for too long, there is a potential to burn the tissues underneath, which you may or may not feel.
Ultrasound therapy should not be used on these body parts:
The two main types of ultrasound therapy are thermal and mechanical. Both use sound waves generated by a transducer head (which looks a bit like a microphone) to penetrate soft tissues. The difference between the two types of ultrasound therapy is the rate at which the sound waves penetrate the tissues.
Thermal ultrasound therapy uses a more continuous transmission of sound waves. The sound waves cause microscopic vibrations in deep tissue molecules, increasing heat and friction. The warming effect encourages healing in soft tissues by increasing metabolism at the cellular level.
Mechanical ultrasound therapy uses pulses of sound waves to penetrate tissues. While this still has a minor warming effect, it also causes expansion and contraction in tiny gas bubbles in soft tissues. This decreases the inflammatory response, which reduces swelling and decreases pain.
The literature is mixed on the benefits of ultrasound therapy. Some studies show that it can effectively control certain types of chronic pain,while others say there's little difference between ultrasound therapy and other traditional therapy treatments (such as heat, stretching and electrical stimulation) for pain control.
