Many of my patients suffer from knee pain. A lot of times, I’ll have patients that come to my office who have just seen their orthopedic surgeon who have told them that they need a knee replacement. They will then come to me asking me about what alternative options may be available to them.
HERE ARE FIVE ALTERNATIVE OPTIONS TO HELP CONTROL YOUR KNEE PAIN THAT I DISCUSS WITH MY PATIENTS:
PHYSICAL THERAPY
The first thing we’ll usually talk about is something that they may have already had done, which is physical therapy. A lot of times physical therapy is overlooked or is not given enough credit and we may try it again. We might even add a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory to help with the therapy.
CORTISONE INJECTIONS
The second thing we’ll usually talk about is cortisone injections. Cortisone injections work really well but the problem is they only last about three to four months. You really don’t want to repeat them because repetitive injections into the joint will cause accelerated degeneration of the joint. In the short-term, they may work well for you but in the long-term they are quite problematic for you.
VISCOSUPPLEMENTATION
The next thing we’ll talk about is viscosupplementation. Viscosupplementation is where we take a gel-like substance and we inject it into the knee, and this will do a few things. It will act as a shock absorber to the knee, it will act like a lubricant to the knee and it will act like a hydraulic fluid to the knee. Generally, patients do well with this. This will last about six months.
GENICULATE NERVE RADIOFREQUENCY ABLATION
The next step is usually geniculate nerve radiofrequency ablation. This is when we will numb and burn the nerves around the knee. This actually works really well. It will last almost eight to twelve months. It will increase the patient’s function; it will decrease the pain and overall the patients are very happy with it.
PLATELET-RICH PLASMA
Finally, the last thing we usually talk about is PRP or platelet-rich plasma. This usually falls under the realm of regenerative medicine which is a big buzzword in medicine these days. The reason why I like PRP is because there is a large body of literature behind it and much of it is encouraging. As long as we very carefully select the patients, they can do quite well.
At Chicago Sports and Spine, we see and treat patients with a variety of stages of knee pain. We specialize in creating a treatment plan that will help patients regain a normal lifestyle. We invite you to schedule a consultation with our board-certified pain management doctor to learn more about treatments and procedures Chicago Sports and Spine offers.