How Radiofrequency Ablation Can Treat Your Arthritis

One in four adults in the United States struggles to make their way through their day thanks to painful and inflamed joints due to doctor-diagnosed arthritis. Unfortunately, there’s no cure for arthritis, but there are steps that we can take to help you move more freely and, most importantly, without pain.

As part of our suite of effective treatment options for managing the pain that comes with arthritis, our team here at Florida Pain Management Institute are pleased to offer radiofrequency ablation.

Here’s a look at how radiofrequency ablation can help you break free from arthritis pain and start living life to its fullest.

Targeting the most common form of arthritis

While there are many different forms of arthritis, we’re going to focus primarily on osteoarthritis (OA), which makes up the lion’s share of arthritis cases. OA is a degenerative form of the disease and occurs when the cartilage in your joints breaks down, allowing your bones to rub together without protection. 

Since it doesn’t contain blood vessels, your cartilage doesn’t have access to regenerative resources, and it can’t repair or rebuild itself readily. As a result, you’re left with painful and inflamed joints that only get worse as the degeneration continues and your nerves become more irritated.

Radiofrequency ablation (RFA) is most effective (and feasible) in two key areas — your spine and your knees. Knee OA is one of the most common forms of OA and facet joint arthritis in your back is also fairly prevalent.

The goal of radiofrequency ablation

With radiofrequency ablation, our goal is to target and quiet the nerves responsible for your pain. To do this, we use radiofrequency energy to heat up and destroy the nerve endings, preventing them from sending pain signals to your brain.

Undergoing an RFA treatment

Once we identify the problematic nerves in your back or knees, we typically start with a trial run to ensure that we’ve located the nerves responsible for your discomfort. During this trial run, we inject a nerve block into the area and monitor your results.

If the nerve block is successful, we then move on to the RFA. First, we insert a probe into the area using live X-ray guidance (rest assured, we first make you comfortable with a topical anesthetic).

Once the probe is in position, we deliver the energy and ablate the nerve. The whole procedure takes less than an hour, in most cases, and you’re free to return home afterward.

After your RFA treatment

In the days following your RFA treatment, you may feel a little soreness, and we do ask that you take it easy (no strenuous activities). In a week or two, you should realize your results, which typically last anywhere from three months to two years or more, depending on how quickly the nerve grows back.

To give you an idea of the success of RFA, a study of nine different clinical trials involving nearly 600 knee OA patients found, “The results of these studies demonstrate significant benefit for both reduction and functional improvement lasting between 3 and 12 months...”

If you’d like to explore whether radiofrequency ablation can help with your arthritis, your first step is to contact one of our offices in Delray Beach, Boynton Beach, or Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, to set up an appointment.