Like millions of other Americans, you’re dealing with chronic spine pain, perhaps in your lower back or in your neck, and you just want relief that lasts for more than a few hours.
If you’ve scheduled a radiofrequency ablation with the team at Glaser Pain Relief Center, you’re well on your way. Under the expert direction of Dr. Jeffrey Glaser and Dr. John Zheng, we’ve helped a good number of patients to find relief from their pain with this approach — relief that lasts.
Here, we aim to give you an idea about what to expect, both during and after the minimally invasive radiofrequency ablation (RFA) procedure.
The RFA procedure has become a true workhorse in relieving spine pain. This is a technique in which we target the nerves that are firing off the pain signals with RF energy that heats and destroys the nerve endings.
It’s a great tool for wear-and-tear conditions — by age 40, most people have degenerative changes in their spine. For conditions like facet joint arthritis, a herniated disc, and sacroiliac joint dysfunction, which is responsible for between 15% and 30% of cases of lower back pain, RFA can be a great pain management weapon. And this list is far from complete.
After we’ve conducted a trial nerve block to be sure that we’re targeting the right nerve fibers, we schedule your RFA procedure. There’s usually very little you need to do in advance, but we will review your medications to determine if there are any related prep instructions.
On the day of the procedure, we recommend that you wear comfortable clothes, and we’d like you to have someone come with you and drive you home.
When we get you into the treatment room, we may have you change into a hospital gown so we have clear access to your spine. Once you’re ready, we position you on the treatment table and administer a local anesthetic for your comfort.
Using live X-ray to guide us, we insert a needle into the area where the target nerves are located. Once the needle is in position, we release the RF energy to ablate the nerve fibers. We repeat these steps as needed to make sure that we tackle all of the nerves that are responsible for the pain signaling.
In most cases, an RFA procedure takes us only minutes to complete, and you’re in and out of our office within an hour.
Once we’re finished, you’re free to go home. You should be fully mobile, but you may experience some soreness at the procedure site. You can remedy this with ice packs and over-the-counter pain medications.
There are no real activity restrictions during your recovery, but we do recommend that you avoid anything strenuous for a day or two afterward. You can also resume showering or bathing the day after your procedure.
When it comes to results, this varies from one patient to the next. Some of our patients experience immediate relief, while it can take 1-2 weeks, or more, for others.
As for how long the pain relief lasts, this varies as well. Nerves can, and do, regrow — your results depend upon the speed of this regeneration. Some of our patients experience pain relief that lasts two years, or more, while others have faster growing nerves and experience 6-9 months of relief.
The good news is that if the pain returns, we can perform another RFA procedure. We also work with you during this time on longer-term management techniques that can prevent the pain from returning, such as strengthening your spine through physical therapy.
If you have more questions about your upcoming radiofrequency ablation procedure, feel free to contact Glaser Pain Relief Center in Encino, California, today.
