Hello Ahari43,

Thank you for advising us on the success of your ultrasound treatment to date. As you know ultrasound medical devices have a wide range of specifications. The key specifications being frequency and power output levels. Then it is important to know how much energy per unit area you apply for your recommended treatment dose.

It would be really interesting to know some of the above features as your own success is encouraging.

I wish you continued success!

Don

Ahari43,

I see from an earlier post that you have a scientific background and I would be hopeful of a future treatment for DD using such ultrasonic therapy. I was anxious to know what dose you are using as certain ultrasonic doses might aggravate the Dupuytrens condition. It is also possible that there are doses and parameters (frequency, pulse width, power) that just might provide a good treatment for DD in the future.

Ultrasonic medical devices are readily available now at low cost. In my own opinion, I would suggest that people do NOT experiment with such devices for self-treatment of Dupuytrens. It is possible that this treatment may aggravate the condition. Here is a summary of my own (non-professional) observations:

1) There are no published studies at all for the use of such ultrasound devices for Dupuytrens.

2) We know the Dupuytrens condition develops by the proliferation of the fibroblast and myofibroblast cells. Ultrasonic devices can stimulate the proliferation of fibroblast cells, resulting in increased cell proliferation. So, such treatment may well accelerate the proliferation of the Dupuytrens condition. The 2011 article in the Archive of Medical Science Journal says that under certain settings the acoustic pulsed energy induces the proliferation of fibroblast cells and increases the release of growth factors. See full paper: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3258710/


Extracorporeal shockwave therapy
This shockwave therapy is not the same as ultrasound treatment, but it is related. Here high-energy sound waves are pulsed at a target tissue for treatment. There is already a formal clinical trial in place to evaluate the hypothesis that shockwave therapy might be beneficial for DD patients. See the 2011 publication by Knobloch K et al. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21277691

The treatment could be carried out at the primary care stage, it is low cost, and does not involve ionising radiation. Currently this shockwave treatment is approved in the US by the FDA for plantar fasciitis and tennis elbow.

Ahari43,

Thank you sharing this. My guess is that your high power setting may indeed be effective in inhibiting biostimulation.

The treatment dose for has two distinct phases for biostimulation (Arndt-Schulz law), where: 1) a low dose may excite physiological activity, and cause proliferation of DD and 2) a high dose may indeed inhibit biostimulation.

My earlier warning is advising people not to play around without any proven research results. However, your results do suggest hope for a possible future treatment solution.