What a Musculoskeletal Ultrasound Reveals About Your Health

When you hear the term ultrasound, you probably think of the procedure that lets you see pictures of your baby before it’s born.

It turns out ultrasounds can be used for much more than checking on the health of your unborn child. They can also reveal information about your health, including helping to diagnose a range of muscle and tissue injuries.

At A+ Athlete Sports Medicine in Robbinsville and Neptune, New Jersey, Adam Redlich, MD, and our team make extensive use of musculoskeletal ultrasounds. Here’s what they can show us about your health.

What is a musculoskeletal ultrasound?

An ultrasound is simply an imaging procedure that uses sound waves to look at various parts of the human anatomy. A musculoskeletal ultrasound looks specifically at soft tissue structures that are part of your musculoskeletal system, such as tendons, ligaments, and muscles.

The ultrasound will provide high-resolution images that allow Dr. Redlich to focus on the exact areas of your pain and determine what’s causing the problem.

During the procedure, you’ll lie down or sit on the treatment table, and a member of our team will apply gel to your skin before pressing a handheld scanning device called a transducer against your body at the site of your injury. The transducer sends out inaudible sound waves that travel through your body.

The gel keeps air pockets from forming between the transducer and your skin, which can block the ultrasound waves. Denser substances in your body reflect the sound waves back, which creates the images you see on the screen.

How can they benefit you?

We use musculoskeletal ultrasounds to diagnose a range of conditions and injuries, including:

• Tendinitis and tendinosis
• Ligament sprains and tears
• Muscle tears and strains
• Joint swelling
• Nerve entrapment
• Carpal tunnel syndrome
• Masses such as tumors or cysts

The procedure can benefit just about anyone experiencing arthritis or muscle pain, those who have experienced a musculoskeletal injury, or those who have a soft tissue mass or infection. 

This type of ultrasound can sometimes provide a clearer picture of your affected structures than an X-ray or CT scan, or it may be used in conjunction with those procedures to help confirm a diagnosis. (Unlike those options, an ultrasound does not use any radiation.)

If your treatment plan requires injections, we can also use the ultrasound machine to accurately guide the needle into the exact location where the injection is needed.

If you’re dealing with an injury and need to see exactly what’s going on, a musculoskeletal ultrasound from A+ Athlete Sports Medicine can help. Just call the nearest office or request an appointment online today.