In many cases of long standing pain related to spine (Lower back pain – spinal arthritis, neck pain – cervical spondylitis, sciatica etc), muscles and joints (knee pain, shoulder pain etc), we are not able to treat the primary problem or the primary reason of pain. In such patients’ interruption of the pathway, carrying the message of pain from spine or joints to the brain is considered the latest and safest method of long-term pain relief. This pathway involves different kind of pain nerves and this technique uses state-of-the-art Radio frequency Ablation method.
Pain specialists, Pain management specialists, Spine specialists, spine surgeons and patients are always looking for long-term solutions rather than short-lived interventions for their pain. There are three main nonsurgical treatments to ablate nerves elements. These are; the use of extreme cold (cryoablation), high temperature radiofrequency and chemicals (neurolysis), such as alcohol or phenol. Radiofrequency ablation offers the advantage of being precise, reproducible and effective to a greater extent. It also has the ability to check before the ablation to avoid ablating the wrong nerve elements, which provides a considerable safety margin. Radiofrequency Ablation (RFA) is a very exciting method in pain medicine that uses a specialized device to disrupt nerve’s role of carrying the message of pain. A probe is inserted through a needle like instrument and controlled delivery of heat is placed along a painful nerve. RFA causes nerve destruction through heat. Interestingly this technique doesn’t alter other normal tasks of these nerves. One alternative technique, though less effective, Pulsed-RFA does not cause nerve destruction, but instead is used to stun painful nerves.