Improve Your Quality of Life with Radiofrequency Ablation for Pain Relief

Millions of Americans struggle with chronic pain each day, which can place severe limitations on their quality of life. If you find yourself with neck, back, or joint pain that doesn’t respond to conservative treatments, then radiofrequency ablation may be just the ticket, as it goes straight to the source of your pain — your nerves.

At Comprehensive Pain Management, with Drs. Do Chan and Boris Shwartzman at the helm, our primary mission is to help our patients overcome debilitating pain that disrupts their lives. While there are a number of effective pain management techniques, we’ve had great success using radiofrequency ablation.

Here’s a look at how radiofrequency ablation can give you hope and improve your quality of life by bringing you much-needed relief.

Going to the source

If you’ve struggled with ongoing pain, you’ve likely tried any number of treatments to help you regain pain-free movement. While medications can be effective, they offer only short-term solutions that simply mask the problem. Surgery may be another potential solution, but you may be — understandably — wary about such an aggressive approach.

With radiofrequency ablation (RFA), we offer a longer-term treatment that’s minimally invasive. Using a heating current sent through an electrode, RFA ablates the nerves that are responsible for sending the pain signals. This technique creates a temporary adhesion on your nerve tissue that prevents it from emitting signals to your brain, allowing you to find the pain relief you’ve wanted.

How RFA works

When you come in for an RFA procedure, we apply a topical numbing agent to the area and then insert a microde through a needle. Using X-ray guidance, which is called fluoroscopy, we guide the needle into the area where we’ve identified the problematic nerve tissue.

Once the needle is in position, we send radiofrequency current through the electrode, which heats up the nerve to the point where it can’t send pain signals.

We perform this procedure on an outpatient basis, which means you’re free to return home directly afterward.

After your RFA procedure

Over the 7-14 days following your RFA procedure, you may feel some mild soreness at the site of the injection, but most of our patients return to their normal activities (except strenuous exercise) within a day or two.

During this time, you should feel gradual relief, and most of our patients report excellent results after 10 days. Results vary from one patient to the next, but many experience relief for several months and sometimes up to a year. These results buy you valuable time to address the underlying cause of your pain through physical therapy or other treatments that help heal and strengthen the area.

If you’d like to explore further how radiofrequency ablation can provide you with a respite from your chronic pain, please contact one of our four locations in Attleboro or Franklin, Massachusetts, or South Kingstown or Warwick, Rhode Island.