Ultrasound imaging aka Diagnostic Sonography is another tool doctors can use to help correctly diagnose injuries. And, in the case of runners and triathletes our sports doctors and Chiropractors have some difficult jobs diagnosing and keeping us going.

I train a lot and every once in awhile I get some small nagging injury. Luckily I have a team of professionals that I can go see to discuss remedies, corrective exercises and potential causes.

Recently, Dr. Sebastian Gonzales of Performance Place in Huntington Beach, CA emailed me to come check out the latest addition to his practice, a really nice GE Medical Ultrasound Imaging device. I also had the pleasure of meeting Michael Jablon, the ultrasound technician.

I have been experiencing some intermittent pain in my right foot and knew this was a perfect opportunity to have it checked out while learning more about ultrasound imaging.

Gonzales and Jablon explained how this radiation free technology was going to let them see things an X-ray might miss at the fraction of the price of an MRI. I took off my shoe and Jablon pulled out the ultrasound wand. After a few passes over the area he saw a couple potential issues. One was a bone spur, not too bad and not totally unusual considered my age and mileage. He also found some inflammation and a small ganglion cyst.

Good news and bad news. The Bad News is in the paragraph above and I usually just pretend its not there and run through it. It’s worked out so far or so I think. The Good News is now I know what’s going on and I can make some informed decisions on my plan of attack to heal with minimal time off.

So, now there is a change in plans. I am still going to run my races but in the mean time I’ll go a little easier, try some preventative taping, ice it every night, keep visiting my sports doctors and really work on creating more healing time after this weekend.

Runners, please take advantages of these tools and technologies. You can contact Dr Gonzales at http://www.p2sportscare.com and/or check with your personal doctors.

Diagnose Focused, Steve Mackel, Head Coach – Sole Runners Full and Half Marathon Training Programs