Genicular Nerve Ablation

stevemailboxSteve this morning I had a right knee Ablation! It is a fairly new pain relief, I hope. They first do a “nerve block”, if that is successful then doing an Ablation is a good second step. At first I felt no pain in the knee. I had this done 10: am, it is 8:14 pm. I am beginning to feel some light pain (2). It isn’t unusual to feel some pain for awhile. I have hope for this and will keep a diary. Could you post this to your links, I’ll update this process.

 

UPDATE 12/02/2016: this morning my knee is completely thawed and very painful. The after surgery info does say it could take 5 days before I will know if this worked. Please share.

 

Genicular Neurotomy (aka Genicular Nerve Ablation)

7 Responses

  1. It will hurt from the shots for a coupla dayd.

  2. Ok then,,yikes,,,Im glad your on thee HUMANE treatment side,,,,of all this,,,maryw

  3. hmmmm..Mr.Lawhern,,,who are u??I mean u don’t just walk n and state,,Im running a research study for thee U.S. national Library,,,????????????????????Sorry,w/my relationship of 35 years w/my hubby;s family,,i think like this,,,,maryw

    • Mary, I’ve supported chronic neurological face pain patients for over 20 years as a non-physician online research analyst, peer-to-peer site moderator and web author. I wrote the US NINDS Trigeminal Neuralgia Fact Sheet and the Wikipedia entry on Atypical Trigeminal Neuralgia. You may learn additional details by visiting my website at http://www.lawhern.org, or looking me up on Google (Richard A Lawhern or Red Lawhern will bring back over 6,000 hits).

      Please note the final paragraph in my comment.

      • pssss,,my Aunt had that,,,Thee Asphunds over Bryn Athen P.A.She went up New York to have some sorta surgery to fix it,,so far,,,it has worked,,nose in thee air type,[jmo] people,, but it was some sorta of surgery to end,that trigeminal Neuropathy,physical pain,,,and it has worked so-far,,,mary,,,

  4. As a moderator for online forums concerned with chronic neurological face pain, I have encountered RF Ablation (also known as “Rhizotomy”) and Neurectomy before. The two are not always the same procedure. Rhizotomy introduces a controlled lesion or scar on the nerve, leaving the core fibers intact. Neurectomy effectively severs the nerve completely.

    While I am not personally familiar with published medical literature on either procedure for the knee, I would share what I know from talking with hundreds of face pain patients who have had one or the other done on the trigeminal nerve in the face. With both procedures in facial pain, pain can recur within weeks to a few years. Likewise in these patients, there is a risk that re-growth of the nerve may result in even worse pain after a period of initial remission.

    Before any patient has one of these procedures, they should first be advised on the rate of pain recurrence in patients who have been treated by the surgical team they are contemplating. Likewise, the surgeon should be able to refer you to published data on side effects and persistence of desired pain relief.

    I ran an abstract search at the US National Library of Medicine on the terms “RF Ablation knee”. I got back 22 references, fewer than half of which were directly pertinent. Among the trials and case reports that do apply, the largest double-blind comparison of RF ablation versus corticosteroid procedures involved a total of about 30 patients. The abstract emphasized that larger scale trials are needed.

    Fair disclosure: though I am reasonably well read on some areas of medical literature, I am no a licensed physician. You should be advised by someone who is, and who is NOT your contemplated provider of medical services.

  5. Hopefully the results are e everything you’re hoping they will be! Is this supposed to be a permanent fix?

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