New Year, New You: How Radiofrequency Ablation Can Help You Leave Chronic Pain Behind

New Year’s resolutions typically focus on self-improvement or a serious vacation. Or perhaps there are plans to eat better or begin an exercise routine. 

For those living with chronic pain, many resolutions may seem out of reach. The team at Metro Anesthesia & Pain Management urges you to check out radiofrequency ablation (RFA), a minimally invasive procedure that delivers long-term pain relief for chronic conditions. 

Chronic pain

Lasting months or even years, chronic pain is sometimes due to an active condition and other times persists after the condition itself heals. Nerve tissue itself can generate pain signals without an active condition. 

When pain exists with no active contributor, or when a chronic condition renders the warning value of pain ineffective, treating nerve tissue to disrupt pain conditions becomes a viable option. That’s when we often turn to RFA therapy to improve your pain condition. 

How RFA can help you leave chronic pain behind

Using radio waves to create heat, in a similar way to microwave ovens, RFA targets tiny areas of nerve tissue to stop the transmission of pain signals. Heating destroys sections of the nerve, impairing its ability to report pain to the brain. 

Chronic pain conditions that respond well to RFA include: 

• Arthritis pain in joints such as the shoulders, hips, and knees
• Chronic lower back or neck pain, when conservative treatments fail
• Facet joint pain in the back or neck, often due to arthritis
• Neuropathy, pain from damaged nerves, e.g., postherpetic and trigeminal neuralgia
• Sacroiliac joint pain, the connection between the spine and the pelvis

RFA isn’t a front-line treatment. We generally recommend it when options such as physical therapy or pain medications fail or cause side effects. 

What to expect from RFA therapy

To confirm that RFA works for your chronic pain, you first receive a diagnostic nerve block. We inject a local anesthetic into the targeted nerve to confirm the source of the chronic pain. When this injection significantly reduces your pain, we know that RFA is an effective treatment. 

The RFA procedure itself takes place under local anesthetic; you remain conscious throughout treatment. A special needle, guided by a continuous X-ray technique called fluoroscopy, confirms the target location. 

At this point, we numb the area with an anesthetic, and the radiofrequency energy heats the targeted nerve. We can treat more than one area in a single session. An RFA session can take 15-120 minutes, depending on the location and number of treatment sites. 

Contact Metro Anesthesia & Pain Management in West Des Moines and Des Moines, Iowa, to see if RFA is a New Year’s resolution option for you. Call or click today to schedule your visit.