3 Little-Known Treatments A Pain Center May Offer For Knee Osteoarthritis Pain
If you suffer from severe osteoarthritis of the knee, then you may find tasks that you once found simple, such as stepping into the bathtub, now cause so much pain that you have to avoid them completely. Instead of simply living with this pain and allowing it to limit your activities, you should reach out to a local pain center that likely offers many treatments to help ease the pain and stiffness that accompanies knee arthritis.
Read on to learn about three knee pain treatments you may not have heard about and how they can ease arthritis knee pain.
1. Viscosupplementation
One knee pain treatment option available to people with osteoarthritis of the knee is a procedure called viscosupplementation. To administer this knee pain treatment, a pain center doctor will inject a substance called hyaluronic acid into your knee. Since all knees naturally contain hyaluronic acid, and people suffering from arthritis in their knee tend to have less of this natural knee lubricant, the addition of more hyaluronic acid can often heal knee pain.
While some people notice a difference in knee pain after just one viscosupplementation treatment, others need several treatments to experience lasting pain relief or do not respond to the treatment at all.
2. Botulinum Toxin Injections
While many people obtain botulinum toxin, or Botox, injections to relax the muscles in their faces that trigger the formation of wrinkles when contracted, many more medical uses have been found for this substance. Today, some pain centers now offer botulinum toxin injections to sufferers of osteoarthritis to help ease knee pain.
Several research studies performed on people with knee osteoarthritis revealed that those who were administered botulinum toxin experienced a much greater reduction in knee pain compared to people who were administered placebo injections. In addition, this knee pain relief lasted for a full six months or longer in many patients.
While the reason that botulinum toxin injections help ease knee pain is currently unknown, this injectable medication is known to affect nerves and the signals they send to the brain.
3. Radiofrequency Ablation (RFA)
When medications and injectable treatments are not enough to control knee pain, a procedure called radiofrequency ablation (RFA) may be offered to you. During this non-surgical knee pain treatment, a special probe is used to heat the nerves that cause knee pain to destroy them, so they can no longer send pain signals to the brain. While these nerves do grow back, most people continue to experience RFA pain relief for six months or up to two years after the procedure.
If you suffer from osteoarthritis and are plagued with intense knee pain, then visit a pain center that may offer these non-surgical knee pain treatments and others.