Ultrasound treatment for Dupuytren’s contracture

Dupuytren’s contracture ultrasound treatment is the perfect non-invasive soft tissue therapy.   This is true because ultrasound has a great therapeutic effect especially on the soft tissue. In fact, ultrasound therapy is the standard treatment of choice for most soft tissue problems in the sports world.  It is used in most worker’s comp related injuries, as well.

You see, ultrasound influences most greatly those tissues with a high protein content.  And there is no tissue with a higher protein content than the soft tissue (muscles, tendons, ligaments, etc.) of the body.  Scar tissue, similar to the Dupuytren’s palm nodule and finger cord is very similar to scar tissue which has the highest protein content of all tissue.   Add Dupuytren’s contracture to that list because DC palm lumps and finger cords are primarily made of collagen and fibrin.  Clearly, Dupuytren’s contracture is a soft tissue problem ideally suited for ultrasound treatment.

For these reasons, ultrasound treatment for Dupuytren’s contracture is an effective and popular therapy with DCI customers.

There are many reasons people like treating Dupuytren’s contracture with ultrasound:

1. No pain; comfortable treatment.
2. Safe, no side effects.
3. Convenient, do at home or anywhere, anytime.
4. Economical; pays for itself by the 2^nd treatment application.
5. Good reports of effectiveness from thousands of DC users.
6. Applied directly to the problem tissue.
7. Also good to treat arthritis of small joints (jaw, toe, finger, ankle and wrist).

Ultrasound treatment for Dupuytren’s contracture was included into the DCI large treatment plan in 2012.  That same year DCI started to advise adding ultrasound therapy to any small plan that was not working well.  Since then, many times over, ultrasound has made all the difference to previously ineffective plans that needed a big boost.

3 MHZ Ultrasound Information

Does ultrasound help Dupuytren’s contracture?

Because 72% of DCI customers combine ultrasound into larger size plans, they rate their DCI treatment results to be very good.  Indications are that ultrasound improves Dupuytren’s contracture treatment results 89% of the time.  Overall, 8-10 people report moderate to marked improvement of their DC, for every one report of failure.  Indeed, Dupuytren’s contracture ultrasound treatment is an important part of that success.

What is ultrasound?

Ultrasound is not complicated. Simply, ultrasound is sound greater than a frequency of 20,000 Hz. It is so high-pitched (high frequency) that a human cannot hear it.  Here is some fun information that explains it a little better.

When discussing sound, the term Hertz is used.  Hertz is a unit of measurement to count vibrations that happen in one second.  Hertz is abbreviated HZ.  One hertz (Hz) means something vibrates one time in one second. 17 Hz means something vibrates 17 times in one second. When something vibrates a million times in a second, or one mega Hertz, abbreviated 1 MHz.  Lastly, 3 MHz is three million vibrations per second.

To put things in perspective, the sounds made by the human voice range from 85 Hz to 255 Hz.  Further, the human ear can hear within a range of 20 to 20,000 Hz.  At 1 MHz, no human can hear ultrasound.  Not even a bat can hear at that sound frequency.

When electricity passes through a small mineral crystal, it will vibrate.  This vibration creates a sound wave. Like when a bell vibrates and makes a sound. The sound frequency depends on the size and shape of the crystal.  As we already know, ultrasound vibrations can go well past a million per second. Once created, ultrasound waves pass from the sound head of the machine, and travel into any tissue it contacts.

Sound energy moves whatever it contacts, making that material also vibrate.  Specifically, when ultrasound energy contacts the human body, that part of the body will vibrate at the same frequency.  Likewise, ultrasound vibrations will transfer into abnormal or injured tissue.  As we will see, this is important because vibrating living cells causes them to faster and better. This is the key to why Dupuytren’s contracture ultrasound treatment is so important.

3 MHZ Ultrasound Information

What does Dupuytren’s ultrasound treatment do?

When tissue vibrates so fast, several things happen that are important to all soft tissue problems, especially Dupuytren’s contracture:

• HEATING EFFECT – Ultrasound warms the tissue by vibration and friction, caused by sound waves shaking the tissues at 3MHz. Like rubbing your hands together 3 MHz! However, this heating takes place below the surface where there are no nerve endings. Therefore, the heat cannot be felt.  Deep heat stimulates the healing process like a heating pad. But a heating pad only warms the surface. The heat cannot penetrate deeply because blood circulation carries the heat away.  Thus, ultrasound warms all tissues deeper and faster than the blood can cool them.  In fact, it even warms the blood vessels.
• CAVITATION – Formation of temporary gas cavities or voids within body fluids and tissue cells.  These gas voids increase the metabolic activity of cell membranes. Cavitation also increases the effect of the acoustic streaming phenomena.  These cavities collapse almost immediately, releasing a large amount of energy. In turn, this results in additional deep warming.
• ACOUSTIC STREAMING – Small-scale ripple effect of fluid near any vibrating structure, (bathtub, coffee cup, or sick tissue cell).  This is an extremely powerful form of fluid movement.  Acoustic streaming increases the activity and metabolism of any cell within the sound energy stream.  It makes sodium and calcium ions pass more easily through cell walls. In turn, enzymes work better, protein metabolism is increased, and the cells function at a faster rate. Consequently, all these changes “up regulate,” or excite cellular activity.  Thus, ultrasound acoustic streaming acts as a trigger to increase the therapeutic outcome of healing and repair.
• MICROMASSAGE – Physical shaking is like a cellular back rub. Movement of cells and what is in them to increase tissue fluid interchange.

Not all Dupuytren’s disease ultrasound machines the same

Dupuytren’s contracture is a relatively superficial soft tissue problem.  This dense abnormal fibrous tissue is immediately below the skin surface.

Any ultrasound machine used to treat Dupuytren’s contracture must have a particular frequency range to keep the therapeutic sound waves within the palm lump and finger cord.

A 1MHz machine penetrates too deeply to be effective for Dupuytren’s contracture. This sound frequency is good for treating large joint problems of the hip, knee, shoulder and low back.  By contrast, a 3 MHz unit penetrates just a little below the surface.  Also, it is used for cosmetic problems like small joint arthritis, facial wrinkles and skin discoloration.  What is more, making it ideal to treat Dupuytren’s contracture.

To summarize, use 3 MHz ultrasound to treat Dupuytren’s contracture.  A faster 3MHz unit produces ultrasound that works near the surface of the skin, where the problem of DC is located. Not deep down.  The sound waves of the 1 MHz and 2 MHz ultrasound machines travel too deeply for good Dupuytren’s contracture ultrasound treatment.

Using ultrasound treatment for Dupuytren’s contracture

Full instructions for using our 3MHz ultrasound machine come with each DCI order.  You will have all the information you need to use ultrasound correctly for Dupuytren’s contracture therapy. No one complains they do not understand.

Dupuytren’s contracture ultrasound treatment is not a magic bullet or miracle cure for palm lumps and finger cords.  Ultrasound is just more tool to assist the healing process. Regardless, it still takes a lot of time and work to get the job done to the best of your ability.

3MHz – Model HS-3040 – Ultrasound treatment for Dupuytren’s contracture

• Only portable 3MHz ultrasound machine with stainless steel sound head
• Only portable 3MHz ultrasound machine with FDA 510K clearance for medical use
• Delivers dependable 3MHz (3 million waves per second) frequency that is ideal for treatment of Dupuytren’s contracture, rather than 1MHz frequency work best on deeper tissue, arthritis and large joint treatment
• Select either continuous or pulsed setting
• Lightweight
• Durable
• Portable
• Two different power settings available:
• U.S.A. – 24V DC, and 110V AC
• International standard settings – 24V DC, and 230V AC

Practically all US machines sold on the internet are 1MHz units.  They are so popular because they are designed to treat deep tissue joint pain that is covered with many layers of heavy tissue (knees, hips, shoulders), whiplash neck injury, most kinds of arthritis, and heavy muscle pain problems. But the 1MHz size machine is not ideal for Dupuytren’s contracture.

Dupuytren’s contracture is a superficial soft tissue problem, found much close to the surface of the body. For this reason, any US machine used to treat Dupuytren’s contracture must have a particular frequency range to keep the therapeutic effect closer to the skin surface where the DC problems are located.

Dupuytren’s contracture ultrasound treatment has three primary benefits:

1. Speeding up the healing process by cavitation, acoustic streaming, heating and the increase in blood flow in the treated area.
2. Decrease pain from the reduction of swelling and edema.
3. Gentle massage of the area of fibrous tissue formation to soften nodules, cords and scar tissue.

(US Ultrasound orders) 110V Option   $160.00    $160.00

(International Ultrasound orders) 130V Option     $160.00

NOTE : Contact or coupling gel is needed to treat with ultrasound.  Mineral oil or plain ultrasound coupling gel can be used, but for DC the best is DMSO gel because it delivers other therapeutic benefits.  If you haven’t used DMSO previously, click HERE to learn more.