Assessed For Knee Denervation Procedure
[ Tuesday January 13th 2026 at 4:50 pm ]
On January 8th 2026 my surgeon asked me to have my pain management doctor assess me for knee denervation. This is a pain management nerve block procedure. The theory is that you won't feel pain in your knees for between 2 and 5 years. The idea behind the procedure is the possibility of delaying a knee replacement procedure or providing optimum pain control during a very difficult recovery of a knee replacement surgery.
I spent time between January 9th and 11th 2026 reading doctor authored and then peer reviewed articles and the patient education section articles of health care facilities that perform knee denervation. I simply do not doctor myself with online searches. I only wanted knowledge from primary source material so I could have a reasonable discussion and understanding from my pain management doctor. By the third day of looking into this I wasn't wanting knee denervation performed on my body. On first day day the picture I started building up in my mind was that this isn't a reliable procedure. By the third day the material I was reading lead me to form the opinion that my surgeon was grasping at straws.
I should add that I guard against forming initial opinions. You never know what a person has gone through. There is almost always value in life experiences ... even the ones that are painful. I also value people being heard and understood. I want to be able to bring out the best input from people who are worthy of being listened to on the topic. When I had formed the opinion on the third day that knee denervation was all but reckless I found myself in uncharted territory. I have been in ongoing treatment for my physical disability as an adult for 20 years. There has only been 1 other instance that I can recall where the proposed treatment made no sense to me. I really didn't like being put in this position.
I needed to shift my thoughts to giving my surgeon the benefit of the doubt. It was finding this really hard. Then best I could do was to start thinking about this in terms of showing me this could actually work without treating me like a crazy science experiment. After about an hour I wasn't as upset and ready to find a midway compromise. At it's core knee denervation is suppose to be a pain management strategy. I have a lot of experience managing pain. I understand the idea of knee blocks. I decided if my pain management doctor could demonstrate to me the ability to use an equal amount of local freezing and it was successful blocking my knee pain I would reconsider my position. There was no way I was just going to let them do this to my body.
During the pain management appointment I have just finished my pain management doctor actually confirmed the concerns I had. He doesn't perform knee denervation. He has done this in the past. It isn't a reliable procedure. It doesn't give consistent results. My pain management doctor told me the knee sensory nerves aren't in the same location for each person. They have to search for them using ultrasound. It is very difficult to locate them. But there is a catch. The knee sensory nerves are in branches. You don't know how many branches a person has. If every single branch isn't treated during the knee denervation the patient still feels their knee pain. Then he started talking about this being a very painful procedure to go through. This leads to both the patient and the doctor being frustrated.
My pain management doctor prepared the appointment notes. He gave me a copy to bring to my surgeon. This leaves me continuing the conversation with my surgeon about replacing my right knee joint. I am feeling a lot more than being satisfied. I am relieved.