Knee osteoarthritis is a very common condition, especially the more we age. It occurs when the cartilage that covers the knee joint breaks down, causing stiffness, swelling and pain. This typically happens as we grow older, but it can also be because of old knee trauma or stress on the joints.
Although there is no cure for the osteoarthritis of the knee, there are osteoarthritis knee treatment Missouri has that can help relieve the pain and discomfort associated with the illness. Typically, your physician will prescribe physical therapy and anti-inflammatory medications, painkillers, or even narcotics or steroids to help relieve the pain. When these treatments didn’t work, traditionally, the last resort would have been knee replacement. However, this is an invasive procedure that is not right for everyone, so researchers have been looking into other solutions.
One of the latest treatments discovered for knee osteoarthritis is genicular artery embolization, which is a minimally invasive procedure aimed to reduce the inflammation associated with the condition, and therefore to relieve the pain.
The procedure takes about two hours and involves threading a small catheter through the femoral artery and deploying small beads to reduce the blood supply to the affected areas of the joint. After the procedure, the patient will stay for observation for a little while and will be released home the same day. It is a simple, convenient solution, which patients might want to consider instead of knee replacement surgery.