Notice you can buy them fairly cheaply now. Anyone got one to treat themselves? Which did you get? Was it beneficial? Do you need to know what you’re doing? Want it to treat Achilles tendinitis.

The evidence is mixed for the benefits of U/S.
Tim Watson’s website gives advice on dosage/contraindications etc. if you do decide to buy one.

Your time and money is probably better spent performing an eccentric loading programme.

there was a metastudy on shoulders that found the US was crucial in shortening and sustaining healing, I will find and post here. My Old Man had surgery to sort out shoulder bursitis and the consultant gave him and ebay link to a 50 quid hand held US device and gave him a 3 times a day programme to do.

Not a gret believer in ultrasound to be honest. Eccentric exercises are the gold standard for achilles tendinopathy. Google Alfredson Protocol.

Thanks SBZ, picked up on an earlier post of yours and have been doing eccentric load exercises based on what i could find out about the Alfredson protocol for about a week now.

Been doing 2 sets of 3×15 reps (one with straight leg and one with bent knee) twice a day. Been adding a bit of weight slowly but I don’t really get any pain when i do the reps, though I do still get pain form walking. Do I just need to strengthen it up some more and slowly increase the weight until it starts to become painful?

I’d either add weight or increase reps until it gets uncomfortable during the reps. It’s a long haul that but it does work.

One other thing that I found helped me when I had achilles problems was to use a tubigrip to add a wee bit of compression.

Thanks i’ll give that a go. It’s been over a year now so I’ll pretty much try anything!

Quick bump… still be interested to know if anyone has any first hand experience of DIY ultrasound…?

Not done it DIY, but had Ultrasound treatment for Achilles Tendonitis, and it seemed to help, but that could have been the stretches (every hour) or the physio I was having.

Good luck with the recovery, and hope you don’t end up tearing your calve from ignoring the Achilles Tendonitis. 😉

Not ignoring it Milkie, been a year of physio, stretching exercises, eccentric loading exercises, resting, trying various exercise…

Right leg is almost ok now, but left leg is still a problem 🙁

You say you’ve had a year of physio, stretching, eccentric loading exercises etc, but if you are completely honest with yourself have you been putting the required effort in for a year or have you been playing at fixing it?

in my experience US is great. Had lots of tendon trouble in elbow (bicep) and in the shoulders (both) and it does the trick.

At first I wasn’t convinced, but the results speak for themselves

SBZ, have been serious about recovery for most of that time. First six months followed Physio advice with 10×3 eccentric loading twice a day, stretching for calves twice a day, ice and heat twice a day (drove the missus crazy). Also had heel lifts in shoes. Also had ultrasound and cross frictional massage once a week with the Physio. Got to the point where I was trying to start running again.

Right leg was much improved but left leg seemingly no better. Then really lost faith with the whole thing and started to suspect that the exercises might be preventing healing somehow. Pretty much gave up on it for about 3 month. A bad time!

Now back on it with renewed faith in the process for the past month.

When I look back at how bad it was it really is much improved, but the constant ache while walking does still get me down.

Also had ultrasound …. once a week with the Physio.

For my Dad, as detailed above, the consultant said that this was the problem in the UK with US, not doign it often enough, once a week apparently makes no difference. Apparently in the US they do US 3 times a day! Also a mate who is an ex pro ruby player said he was given ultra sound 3 x a day for 4 weeks when he had his cruciate ligament surgery (all paid for by the club of course and there is the difference). Hence the surgeons advice to buy a 50 quid chinese ebay machine and DIY.

Toys19, that’s what I figured. Think if I had been a pro athlete I’d probably be getting physio a couple of times a day, and that once a week isn’t really sufficient to make much of a difference…. but at 40 quid a time that could get very expensive very quickly!

Mr Blobby
“When I look back at how bad it was it really is much improved, but the constant ache while walking does still get me down.”

I had that with my ankle, just a constant ache al of the time. I did look into Ultasound as well but was put onto a “tens machine”

I have to say it 99% better, only aches a little after a long ride or standing all day.

Be intresting to hear what SBZ has to say on Tens machine, sounds like he in the “trade” of fixing people.

Mr blobby- What has your riding been like with the injury?

I’ve done quite a bit of riding and I don’t think it’s done too much harm. It doesn’t get sore when riding, and doing the pinch test before and after riding it’s no sorer after. It’s a good thing as at least it means I can keep up some fitness.

TENS is a good pain killing treatment, but it wont do much to sort out the cause of tendinopathy. IF it’s the type of tendon pathology that eccentric exercises are aimed at then they are as good as it gets. IF it isnt then there are other treatments that are more effective.

The thing with eccentric exercises is that they are very easy to do incorrectly and you need to do a hell of a lot of them. I have been known to ask people to do upwards of 1000 reps/day. That was on top of calf stretches and aggressive soft tissue massage.

It’s good to hear that you have been able to continue with your riding. Have you been able to continue with taking it easy riding? Now that’s really hard to be so disciplined. I think that it may make sense not to get too aggressive too soon with your riding e.g. blasting a hard hitting hard tail where you would expect to be increasingly dynamic and possibly with your heels dropped. Perhaps ride a more forgiving ride (FS) that way you could get away with riding with a poorer technique allowing the bike to do more work for you. Also when freewheeling you could shift the load by having a different foot forwards. This may = less micro trauma macro trauma if you really go for it. Good luck!