For Heel Pain and Neuroma Pain- Cortisone injection or UltraCryo (Cryoanalgesia)?

Given the extremely high rate of complete pain relief seen in UltraCryo and the ease with which patients tolerate the procedure, Dr. Rampertab offers UltraCryo as an option for treatment early in the treatment course. Cortisone injections have many side effects, especially when there are several injections in the same area. These side effects include but are not limited to loss of fat and fibrofatty tissue, localized bone loss, water retention, hyperactivity, abnormalities in blood sugar control in Diabetics, etc. The loss of fat padding can actually worsen the symptoms seen in Plantar Fasciitis and Neuromas. For more on this, visit the section "What are the side effects commonly associated with cortisone injections?"

In Plantar Fasciitis, the heel pain is actually from the tearing/repairing of the ligament causing localized inflammation. There is an area of inflammatory tissues around the site of injury and this is the source of pain when the patient steps down on the heel in the morning or after sitting for a while. When repeated cortisone injections cause Fat Pad Atrophy, there is less padding around the heel bone. This causes even more pressure on the area of inflamed tissues. Additionally, as we walk the heel bone has a lot of pressure and impact on it with every step. The fat padding around it acts to absorb the shock. When there is atrophy of that padding, there is more shock into the heel bone. This commonly leads to bone pain in the heel and less commonly leads to fracture or stress fracture of the heel bone. These are much more difficult conditions to treat.

As for Neuroma pain, this is due to inflammation of the nerve as it courses between the bones. With inflammation comes enlargement of the nerve. With repeated cortisone injections, we will see atrophy of the tissues between the bones. This leads to less cushioning of the enlarged nerve and more continuous pain.

As one can plainly see, the temporary pain relief of a cortisone injection is not worth the long-term adverse effects associated. Dr. Rampertab tries to avoid these adverse effects by offering real pain relief without bad side effects. At azcryo, Dr. Rampertab has over 97% success rate with UltraCryo. That means that over 97% of patients got complete relief of their original symptoms. This is not partial relief. These patients were not almost pain-free. They no longer had any of their original symptoms. As for the procedure, it hurts as much or less than having a cortisone injection. The only real pain associated with the procedure is the first local anesthetic injection. The second injection does not hurt because the area is already numb. As the procedure (freezing of the nerves) is performed, there is rarely pain. Less than 10 out of almost 4000 patients said they felt any pain from the procedure. There is a very short, uncomplicated post-op period and the patient is back to full activity in 2-3 days. They are back to light exercise in a week. When a procedure is this successful and this well-tolerated, why would anyone deal with the possible side effects of cortisone injections? The answer is plain to see-UltraCryo brings more long-term pain relief than cortisone injections without the bad side effects.