Benefits of Arthroscopic Surgery

If you have been advised by your doctor to undergo arthroscopic surgery, you may be wondering how it is different from regular surgery and how it can help you. Let’s talk about how arthroscopic surgery works and how it can be an excellent solution to help relieve your joint pain.

Why Get Arthroscopic Surgery?

If you have been experiencing chronic pain in any of your joints, and traditional or conservative treatments such as pain injections have not been working to help alleviate the pain, then you may be told that arthroscopic surgery is your best option to bring relief for your aching joint. Arthroscopic surgery is often done on the knee, shoulder, wrist, ankle, hip, or elbow.

Arthroscopy is a minimally invasive method of diagnosing and treating joint pain. Oftentimes, both the diagnosis and the surgical treatment are performed during the same procedure, so you won’t have to go back a second time.

How Does Arthroscopy Work?

Arthroscopic surgery is almost always an outpatient procedure. The patient is first placed under mild anesthesia, and the surgeon uses thin instruments and must only make tiny incisions in the skin near the joint.

The surgeon will go in and view the damaged joint, such as a knee or hip, via the tiny camera at the end of the arthroscope. Joint tissues that can be viewed and repaired include muscles, bones, tendons, ligaments, and cartilage.

Because the incisions in the skin and other tissues are so small during arthroscopy, it is much faster to heal from this type of surgery – and there is much less risk of infection, because tissues were not as exposed as during traditional “open” surgery. Any procedure that is minimally invasive will naturally require a shorter recovery period than after fully invasive surgery, in which there are larger incisions and more tissues and organs are exposed during the operation.

What Does Arthroscopic Surgery Treat?

Arthroscopy can help reduce or eliminate inflammation of the joints by removing the inflamed tissue. Below are some of the most common reasons why your orthopedic surgeon would perform arthroscopic surgery:

• Elbows: arthrofibrosis, bone spurs, damaged cartilage, tennis elbow, golfer’s elbow, and arthritis
• Knees: torn meniscus, dislocated knee, torn ACL, and arthritis
• Ankles: sprained ankle, damaged cartilage, bone spurs, and arthritis
• Wrists: fractured wrist, twisted wrist, ganglion cysts, and arthritis
• Shoulders: torn rotator cuff, frozen shoulder, labral tears, and arthritis
• Hips: snapping hip syndrome, cartilage damage, and arthritis 

Skilled Orthopedic Surgeon in Little Rock

Arthroscopic surgery offers many benefits to people who have chronic joint pain or an injury that continues to cause pain. Using arthroscopy, an orthopedic surgeon can determine the cause of pain in a joint, determine how extensive the damage is, and repair the problematic issue during the same procedure.

If the doctor recommended this minimally invasive surgery, you will likely only require minimal removal of tissue to reduce or eliminate the painful inflammation. The surgery will likely be an outpatient procedure, and you may be able to get back to your regular lifestyle within a matter of days.

If you would like to discuss your options with an experienced orthopedic physician in Little Rock, contact our friendly team of professionals today at Bowen Hefley Orthopedics. Call us at (800) 336-2412 or request an appointment now, and let us help you get started on your path to a more pain-free, active lifestyle once again.