How Radiofrequency Ablation Alleviates Leg Pain

When your legs hurt, you may think it’s your muscles, nerves, or joints. But it could also be your veins. If you have varicose veins, then your legs aren’t getting the healthy circulation of oxidized blood to and from your lungs and heart that they need.

At Women’s Health Institute, a medical spa in Macon, Georgia and Warner Robins, Georgia, our experts first determine the source of your leg pain. If it comes from abnormal, dysfunctional veins, they recommend radiofrequency (RF) ablation to permanently remove the veins and resolve your pain.

How bad veins cause leg pain

You know your varicose veins cause you emotional pain. You don’t like looking at them and may feel self-conscious about revealing them at the gym, pool, or during the warmer months of the year. 

Varicose veins and other sorts of twisted, visible veins — such as spider veins — aren’t a merely cosmetic or aesthetic problem. Varicose veins are broken veins. They don’t work anymore.

The reason why varicose veins can cause pain is that they allow blood to pool up behind broken valves. The valves are supposed to help unoxidized blood move back up your veins toward your heart and lungs to be re-oxidized and circulated throughout your body’s tissues and organs.

Instead, the backed-up blood causes your legs to swell and feel inflamed. You may notice itching sensations, changes in the way your skin looks, and aches, pains, or cramping in your lower legs.

You don’t need bad veins

You may hesitate to treat your varicose veins because you think that maybe your body needs those veins to circulate your blood and keep you healthy. But, in truth, varicose veins interfere with healthy blood circulation. They don’t do the job you need them to do. So, you don’t need them.

You can remove varicose veins in several ways, including non-invasive RF ablation and invasive surgery. However you remove the veins, as soon as they’re gone, your blood reroutes itself to healthy blood vessels. Your circulation improves and your pain resolves.

RF ablation is easy and pain free

We recommend RF ablation to treat varicose veins because the treatment itself doesn’t cause further trauma or require a long recovery time. With RF ablation, we use RF energy to heat up and close the damaged vein so that it’s — literally — taken out of circulation.

You come to our office for your RF ablation. We clean and sterilize the treatment area, then apply a numbing cream to keep you comfortable. You’ll have an anesthetist who will keep you comfortable throughout the procedure. 

Your Women’s Health Institute expert then makes a tiny incision, uses ultrasound to see and insert a catheter into the abnormal vein. Then, an electrode is threaded through the catheter. The RF energy transmits through the electrode to heat up and collapse the abnormal blood vessel. You will not feel or remember any of the procedure.  

After the abnormal veins are closed, your doctor withdraws the catheter and applies pressure to the treatment area. The entire procedure only takes about one hour. You don’t need stitches, either: just a small bandage.

Feel better now 

You should start to experience a decrease in pain shortly after your treatment. You wear compression stockings to alleviate swelling and minimize the risk of blood clots. Walking several times a day for 15 minutes helps ensure your legs recover fully. 

You can return to your normal daily activities, pain free. However, to keep your veins healthy, you should avoid sitting for long periods of time and also hold back on the most strenuous activities at first. Stay as active as possible, though, and avoid long car trips or other forms of travel until your recovery period is over. Your Nurse will meet with you and discuss all the essentials and address any concerns before your procedure. 

Contact our knowledgeable and helpful team at Women’s Health Institute today about radiofrequency ablation to end your leg pain.