When you get injured playing sports, you obviously want to get better as soon as possible. It’s just as important that you heal fully, with the right musculoskeletal alignment and joint stability, so you don’t risk reinjury.
Pain can complicate your recovery. That means your pain management plan after a sports injury is critical.
Dr. Michael L. Blackwell and the team at the Center for Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine are here to help make sure your recovery goes as planned, with as little disruption to your athletic career as possible.
We provide expert sports medicine care and support from locations in Tomball, Kingwood, and The Woodlands, Texas.
One of the tools we use to help athletes heal from sports injuries without excess pain is radiofrequency ablation (RFA). How does RFA treatment help your recovery? Here’s the information Dr. Blackwell wants you to have on this type of therapy.
Sports injuries come in many types. You might have repetitive stress injuries, or a high-intensity impact might have caused musculoskeletal damage. Often, pain related to sports becomes a chronic problem for you.
RFA treatment works to reduce pain signals from nerves that have become inflamed, giving you pain relief. RFA is often used to address lower back pain and joint pain.
This treatment works great for runners and other athletes, and can be used to treat sports injuries including but not limited to tendonitis, ACL and MCL injuries, patella injuries, and injured iliotibial (IT) bands.
RFA treatment noninvasively targets overactive nerves with a low-intensity electrical current that’s generated by radio waves. The energy delivers heat to the nerve, effectively stopping it from sending sensation signals to your brain.
In this way, RFA gives you a break from chronic pain, letting you focus on other aspects of your recovery. RFA treatment takes only about an hour to complete, and you can head home right after your appointment. Local anesthesia prevents you from feeling undue discomfort during your treatment session.
RFA results can be long-lasting. It’s not uncommon for pain relief to last for 6-12 months.
When you’re in pain, healing is more of a challenge. Physical therapy and other necessary parts of recovery may be unbearable for you without pain management support. Also, a body that’s stressed by chronic pain has fewer resources to devote toward inner repairs.
It’s important to note that RFA doesn’t fix injuries in and of itself. While this therapy can give you effective pain relief, you may need other treatments and therapies to actually heal. RFA can also give you a little extra time pain-free before starting additional treatments.
Find out how RFA treatment could help you, and whether you could be a good candidate for this approach to sports injury recovery. Contact Dr. Blackwell at the Center for Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine today and schedule your initial consultation. You can request an appointment over the phone or online.
