Foot and ankle pain has become an epidemic in our society. Diabetes, arthritis, weight gain, injuries and other medical conditions are known contributing factors. If you suffer from chronic foot and ankle pain, relief may be at your doorstep!

When people live with pain on a daily basis, they have difficulty performing simple daily activities. Some have difficulty sleeping or simply walking. This often leads to depression, weight gain and stress. The cycle continues, leading to further distress and life changes that are difficult. The conditions worsen as people don't know where to turn for relief.

Cryoanalgesia, also known as Cryosurgery, has been used for almost 20 years to relieve chronic foot and ankle pain by freezing the painful. Newly developed techniques and improvements in the CryoStar technology have led to excellent treatments for relief of pain.

Dr. Marc Katz, a Tampa Podiatrist, has performed hundreds of procedures for relief of foot and ankle pain. He has made it his goal to find a successful treatment and has refined the procedure through extensive training, advanced technology and experience. He found that many patients either lived with foot pain or had multiple types of treatments from many medical specialties with little to no relief. Many people had been told that there was nothing else that could be done to provide them with relief.

So where do you turn when you can't get relief from chronic foot and ankle pain?

Cryosurgery!

The procedure is minimally invasive and takes 15-30 minutes. During a typical in-office procedure, local anesthetic is used so that the cryoprobe can be introduced without discomfort. The probe is inserted through a small skin opening which will require no sutures. The doctor uses a stimulator to locate the nerve. The freeze cycles are then initiated to give long-term pain relief and produce an anesthetic effect.

The patient may perform most of their regular tasks immediately, however . they are advised to decrease their normal level of activity over the first 48 hours. Postoperative discomfort is minimal.

In some cases more than one treatment is needed to obtain optimal results. "Success rates have been around 80 percent in most patients", says Dr. Katz. "As with any treatment, results will vary. However, most patients get significant relief with the Cryosurgery treatment. Some patients may require treatment of several nerve areas to get relief and may need the procedure repeated to gain additional relief."

The latest more specialized Cryosurgery procedure takes advanced skills and is more time-intensive, but allows for localization of the abnormal nerve using a stimulator probe. Also, the area is checked for motor nerves. Those are the nerves that control muscle movement and should not be frozen for pain relief. "It is a more exact and precise procedure, so there is little to no guessing. When freezing the nerve, I am more confident that the actual nerve is freezing and not just an area close to the nerve", says Dr. Katz.

The Cryosurgery procedure sounds fairly straightforward, but it's more than technique and technology. Another important step in obtaining pain relief and success involves the correct diagnosis and finding the source of the pain. This can be a challenge because many patients have a hard time describing the type and location of their pain. The pain may also vary from day to day. Specialized protocols are used to locate the nerve causing the problem and to diagnose and prove the painful condition prior to performing any procedures. Dr Katz believes that this extra step is critical to good outcomes. "Spending individualized time with each patient makes a world of difference."

So what should my expectations be from the Cryosurgery procedure?

The majority of patients get significant pain relief for at least 6-8 months. The relief can be long-lasting if the underlying problem that initially caused the pain is treated. Not all patients treated with Cryosurgery will get relief. Some may require more than one treatment and others may not get relief at all. Also, after treating an area there may be numbness that can be long-lasting. Other previously unidentified pain areas may become more apparent after pain relief in another area. In those cases, the other involved nerves can also be treated. Complications are rare, however with any procedure, they can occur. This should be discussed with your Cryosurgeon prior to the procedure.

So don't give up, Cryosurgery may be the answer for relief of your painful foot and ankle problems.

Dr. Marc Katz is located at 508 S Habana Ave in Tampa.