Radio Frequency Ablation

[Celina1989]

I have had RFA almost 4 weeks ago. First week it was better than usual because the aneasthesia lasted a bit longer than on average. But now I really don't feel any improvements, on the contrary, yesterday it was the first time after several months that my knee got very warm again and it happened again today. Really worried the treatment did not work. When did this treatment work for you?

[Petal]

can you talk to the people who did it? 
at least they didn't hurt you at the time.  I had the preliminary version where they trial blocking nerves  and it was off the scale pain. took 3 nurses to hold my leg still.

[Celina1989]

Thanks for your reply Petal. Had a phone appointment with my orthopedic doctor yesterday and he would have expected any change by now and not worsening of my knee. It was a pain doctor however that did the treatment and they said optimal result at 6 weeks. Would have expected anything good by now. Have requested a MRI and can always cancel it if it miraculously starts working.

My doctor doesn't do nerve blocks anymore since a study showed that they have limited predictive value (patients with negative reaction to nerve block did benefit from treatment). RFA was painful but not like how you describe. That sounds really rough Did you have a succesful nerve block? Continue with treatment? How did it work for you?

[Petal]

Hopefully yours will come good-and if not at least you have the MRI booked.

They were trying to nerve block it and it failed- 20 minutes of them ramming needles into nerves and I have never felt pain like it.  it was that bad I had to have a wheel chair to get back to recovery area and couldn't stop shaking for hours.
I have never been needle phobic and went in all chirpy and happy thinking it would be great and it was horrible shock!!!

[Celina1989]

HOW? They use xray and ultrasound. Finding my nerves wasn't the issue. Unfortunatly it is now past the 6 weeks that both doctors said as expecting the ultimate result and nothing changed. So glad my MRI is in 2 weeks. I see you are looking into TKR? Do you have nerve damage or was the RFA also an attempt to postpone surgery?

[Petal]

Hi. I am sorry you have not got the relief you hoped for.

For me the hope was to delay/ not have knee replacement.

My procedure was a disaster. They normally do it with x ray and contrast fluid .  I cannot have contrast fluid as had a reaction to it in past (very minor but they won't allow it again) . there was no ultra sound. so they did it by feel/guess work.  They never succeeded in blocking anything and after 20 minutes of repeated attempts said it was not going to work and neither was RFA so that was that.

[Celina1989]

I have had RFA almost 4 weeks ago. First week it was better than usual because the aneasthesia lasted a bit longer than on average. But now I really don't feel any improvements, on the contrary, yesterday it was the first time after several months that my knee got very warm again and it happened again today. Really worried the treatment did not work. When did this treatment work for you?

Hmm time to rectify this: "First week it was better than usual because the aneasthesia lasted a bit longer than on average". I actually had a phone call with an asistant after 2 weeks and she said that was the reason that it first went better. But last week I had the call with the actual doctor and he said it is BS, aneasthasia only takes max 2 hours. So just in case anybody reads this for information I want to make sure that there is no wrong information. Unfortunatly this one week was all treatment effect from it. No long term pain relief.