As crazy as it sounds, freezing the knees could be the answer to overcoming knee pain. There are over 10 million Americans who suffer from knee pain alone and that number isn’t set to decrease anytime soon. While conventional medicine has worked, there’s a new quick fix in town and that is to freeze the knee to stop the pain.
Vernon Williams, MD, Director of the Center for Sports Neurology and Pain Medicine at Kerlan-Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic in Ladera Ranch, California has come up with a new therapy called cold therapy to relieve knee pain. Dr. Wlliams states that focuses cold therapy helps reduce the temperature of a peripheral nerve to a very precise zone.
Since most knee pain is related to nerves sending shock signals up our knees how this treatment works is that Doctors locate the nerve that’s responsible for the pain. They then numb the area and insert a cold probe with liquid nitric oxide to freeze the nerve.
Since there’s nothing wrong with lower temperatures on the internal body the treatment does not cause any damage internally. The cold therapy reaches negative 120 degrees. It doesn’t damage surrounding tissues and doesn’t kill the nerve. The relief lasts a few months.
Dr. Williams has also stated that cold therapy doesn’t just apply to knee pain but can actually be used for any issues related to pain that originates from peripheral nerves which includes headaches too.