Nerve Heat Buys Time From Pain

Though her severe osteoarthritis made the 59-year-old woman a good candidate for knee replacement surgery, she chose instead to undergo the Cooled Radio Frequency (Coolief) procedure in her doctor’s office. Her doctor, Eric Loudermilk, M.D., Greenville, South Carolina, has performed about 80 radio frequency ablation procedures, the first about eight months ago, according to reporter Liv Osby, writing in The Greenville News.

Radiofrequency ablation uses heat to destroy tissue. The procedure involves the placing of a 7.5 centimeter needle in three places in the knee. The needle heats the nerves deactivating them. As Loudermilk explained to Osby, “You’re knocking out the pain nerves. It spares the motor nerves so there’s no weakness of the leg. It just stops the impulse from the pain nerves.”

The technique uses cooled water to slow the heating process, thereby allowing the heat to penetrate a larger area of the nerve, said Loudermilk, who was the first in South Carolina to offer the COOLIEF technique for knee pain, according to the manufacturer Kimberly-Clark. So far, Loudermilk said, 90% of his patients have gotten complete relief. The relief from pain has lasted from three months to two years.

Loudermilk sees the Coolief procedure as an alternative for people who are too young or too old to have knee replacement surgery or for those individuals who have conditions that make surgery hazardous. As he told Osby, “This is for individuals who’ve tried all the conservative things, like steroid injections. It provides them with long-lasting pain relief and buys them time before a replacement or to avoid a knee replacement.”