What Is An Ultrasound?

Ultrasound is a high frequency sound that you cannot hear, but it can be emitted and deflected by different tissues in the body. As the ultrasound probe (like a thick ballpoint pen) is rolled over the affected part of your body, thicker tissues bounce more of the waves back. For example; ultrasound echoes pass straight through fluids such as blood and saliva, but will bounce back when they hit something like your thyroid (a gland in your neck). If you have lumps within your thyroid, of different thicknesses, the ultrasound will send back echoes of different density to the machine. The machine will display these areas of lumps and bumps on the monitor. The monitor is constantly updated during the ultrasound, so the image on the screen will change whilst the ultrasound probe is moved over the problem area.

The ultrasound doesn’t hurt at all. You may feel a little bit of pressure from the ultrasound probe being run over your skin, but this won’t be uncomfortable.