Cortisone injections

[Snaggy]

I had a steroid shot a couple of weeks ago, pain is 40% better. My problem is Impingement, much more common than Frozen Shoulder, and a different disease process altogether.

Frozen shoulder can take a year or more for the pain to resolve and the motion to be restored. Maybe the cortisone is wearing off and the painful phase of the illness isn't finished yet. The steroids may help but frozen shoulder has to run it's course.

If it's actually Frozen Shoulder, they rarely do anything surgical, and first the pain, then the reduced range of motion, go away in a couple of years.



https://www.cochrane.org/CD011275/MUSKEL_manual-therapy-and-exercise-for-frozen-shoulder-adhesive-capsulitis

Cochranes is an organization that assesses the effectiveness of medical therapies using only the highest quality evidence and the most stringent criteria. They often find that something doctors do very frequently fails to reach the bar.



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[MrIncredible]

No experience, but I hope it gets better.

You've got cars to build.

 

[Mike95060]

2 rounds of cortisone injections in both ankles. I think they were spaced about 5 years apart maybe. They still hurt. It did get better for a while though. Good luck. Fuck those shots hurt.

 

[Mike95060]

cortisone is seriously not good long term (with chronic exposure, it causes localized physical deterioration, and you may be suffering the effects of that). my doc was ADAMANT that there was a hard limit (for him it was 3 injections in the same joint. period. end of story). if you are needing injections long term, and your current doc is willing to provide them - emphatically recommend you consult with another doc ASAP.

This Jives with everything I was also told Matt. How many shots have you had?

 

[Jalopyshoppe]

Update:
At PT today. As suspected, the shot is just wearing off. I have lost ten degrees of motion that I had previously gained in 2 of the 4 directions previously affected. I'm still up over 12 degrees from initial measurement.
The plan is to continue PT with modified exercises and see what happens when the dust settles. There is currently no plan for more injections.
Hindsight is a bitch.

 

[Archimedes]

A single cortisone injection shouldn't cause what you describe, particularly such a delayed response. I could see if they hit a nerve and you had pain immediately, but even that would be unlikely. I expect it's due to something else, maybe the PT pinched a nerve or something.

The downside of cortisone injections comes from repetition over a long period of time. That's a no no. I used to get them in the back of my left hand for some severe pain I was getting that they couldn't pinpoint. It really helped, at least for a short period, but we had to stop after about six months because the doc was concerned about damage to the tissue.

 

[zphreak]

2 injections and therapy in my right shoulder for a partially torn rotator. They told me that it does sometimes take 2-3 injections depending on how much scar tissue they have to breakdown in therapy. Foam roller, stretching and some strengthening have helped tremendously.

 

[afm199]

Decades of joint injury and treatment here. Cortisone is a bandaid not a fix. It wears off in a few weeks mostly.

My best treatments remain rehab exercises to strengthen the supporting muscles. I still do them on both knees, from a 1970s meniscus tear.

 

[mercurial]

Everyone is going to have a different issue, because biomechanically we are all amazingly unique, but it took me 2 years of solid studying and treatment to fully understand, treat, and create a full maintenance routine for my shoulders. I have recommendations for amazing people if you are in Oakland/Berkeley.

My personal order of efficacy:

1. Gait specialist/bodyworker with Qi Gong background
2. Expert Iyengar Yoga Instructor
3. Very intuitive masseuse/healer
4. Excellent Chiropractor
5. PT #1
6. PT #2
7. PT #3
8. Sports/Orthopedic Doc

Yep, all the western medicine people were pretty useless.

 

[littlebeast]

Decades of joint injury and treatment here. Cortisone is a bandaid not a fix. It wears off in a few weeks mostly.

My best treatments remain rehab exercises to strengthen the supporting muscles. I still do them on both knees, from a 1970s meniscus tear.

it’s not a bandaid, furthest thing from it. it’s a therapeutic tool to help ascertain the nature of the body’s response to injury, and inform a clinician on the best course of treatment going forward. cortisone suppresses inflammation (which is the cause of all manner of issues, and is a bugger to sort out). cortisone is particularly useful to interrupt post injury excess immune system response (that doesn’t shut itself off - see below). if chronic effects of joint injury persist beyond a reasonable (and safe) period of interruption, it is more likely not an immune system over response, but something more structural that would require surgical intervention (most docs will advise of this - we try the simple first, and when that doesn’t resolve the issue, we go for the nuclear option - surgery - as a last resort).

https://www.johnshopkinshealthrevie...mmer-2016/articles/understanding-inflammation

Low levels of inflammation can get triggered in the body even when there’s no disease to fight or injury to heal, and sometimes the system can’t shut itself off.

 

[mercurial]

Cortisone shot is ok for the other thread, where people got their shoulders pulverized, torn tendons, etc. This guy sounds like he has a repetitive stress injury, so I don't think cortisone is going to help much with that.