Passionate about my family, the University of Utah -- GO UTES, almond M&Ms, mountain biking, comfy t-shirts, Survivor, friends, and (of course) running.
Physical therapist at The Health and Performance Center at Dixie Regional Medical Center. I LOVE what I do. Seriously, living the dream!
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Miles:
This week:
0.00
Month:
0.00
Year:
0.00
Thu, Feb 23, 2012
Easy Miles
Marathon Pace Miles
Threshold Miles
VO2 Max Miles
Crosstraining miles
Total Miles
5.00
0.00
4.00
1.00
1.50
11.50
10 miles, AP 8:07
20 minutes bike (random/5/5.2 miles)
* Head still a little cloudy today but not as bad as last night. Probably just because I am a bit congested. Looking forward to getting away this weekend. :)
Adidas Supernova Glide - Pink And Black Miles: 10.00
Comments
From RAD on Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 10:41:23 from 98.202.23.178
excellent work Teena! I'm jealous of your weekend - enjoy it!!
From Smooth on Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 18:38:41 from 174.27.219.252
Bet you aced all your tests as always! :)
Ry sure knows how to spoil you! :)
From Rhett on Fri, Feb 24, 2012 at 07:50:20 from 74.32.209.119
Have a fun getaway this weekend. It will be nice to escape the pressures of real life for a few days.
Teena, when I'm ultrasounding my achilles, does it matter if my foot is flexed with the tendon tight or loose with the tendon relaxed?
From Teena Marie on Sat, Feb 25, 2012 at 09:10:14 from 74.42.121.157
Rachel~
We are having a GREAT time!!!
SSF~
Yep, I am one lucky girl!!!
Rhett~
Okay, here's the deal. I have not been able to find the exact specs I was looking for on your unit. Does your owners manual say anything about the exact intensity of your low, medium, and high settings? You would be looking for something in watts/cm^2. It would be nice to know so that we could really figure out the appropriate amounts of time. Also, I am assuming that it uses a transducer head. Somewhere, legally, it should say what the BNR ratio is. Possibly something like 6:1 (the lower the ratio the better, but since it is for home use it may be higher). As far as what position to have your achilles in when you do this. That all depends on what your goal of the treatment is. For example, if you are doing it simply for a circulation response (i.e., just trying to get more blood to the area) then it really wouldn't matter. If you are doing it because your achilles is feeling tight then that is a different story. In that case you would want to take advantage of the thermal effects of ultra sound (which is where it would be really nice to know what the exact intensity levels are) and get the area heated up at least 4 degrees celsius so that you can really get the best tissue extensibility. In that case I would start out relaxed then about half way through the treatment I would stretch it for just a minute, and then once the treatment was finished I would stretch it again for about 4 minutes.
I hope I am answering your question. Also, make sure that you only treat an area no larger than 2-3 times the transducer head. Otherwise it really doesn't work well at all. If you need to treat a larger portion then do it in quadrants (i.e., do the whole treatment on one part then start all over for another part and so forth).
Also, you only have a 1 MHz option, right? No option for a 3 MHz, correct?
One last thing, if you are using it for non-thermal effects (i.e., you think you may have a small tear or something like that) research has shown that lower intensities for longer periods of time have proven to be the best. Whereas for thermal effects you want to more vigorously heat up the area. If you do it just right you should really not feel much warmth until the last minute or two.
Is this helping or am I just rambling? :)
From Teena Marie on Sat, Feb 25, 2012 at 09:12:10 from 74.42.121.157
Oh yeah ... one more thing ... it is VERY important that you use a gel or saran wrap or something like that as a medium. Hopefully it came with some ultrasound gel (definitely the easiest). Do not do it just on your skin. It simply will not work. Air is a horrible medium!!! Also, make sure that you are treated it directly perpendicularly. Otherwise you are going to have too much refraction and not really get the benefits! :)
From Rhett on Sat, Feb 25, 2012 at 14:11:22 from 74.32.209.119
Yes Teena, this is helping. I had no idea there was so much to know about ultra sound. I'll try and find that info you asked about. But this already helps some. Thank you so much.
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