Am I a good candidate for a joint injection?

The Interventional Pain Doctors team of orthopedic pain management specialists will review your medical history, perform a problem focused physical exam, review imaging, and offer a customized treatment plan based on an accurate diagnosis. If you have joint pain you may benefit from an injection.

Medicine Used

Joint injections are used to treat pain for several reasons:

• Corticosteroids are the traditional way to treat inflammation and are mixed with local anesthetic. Risks of steroids include cartilage damage, joint infection, increases in blood sugar, weakening or rupture of nearby tendons, osteoporosis, skin discoloration, and weight gain.
• Newer, cutting edge therapy using Regenerative Medicine Therapy with platelet rich plasma (PRP) and Stem cells uses your own body’s ability to promote healing, reduce inflammation, and relieve pain without many of the risks associated with steroids.

What to expect afterwards?

Your doctor and staff will explain what to expect before, during, and after the treatment. If you want sedation for your procedure, your doctor will advise you to avoid eating or drinking anything for eight hours before the procedure and to have a responsible adult drive you home. You may need to stop taking certain medicines (blood thinners) several days before your procedure. You are welcome to do the procedure awake, under local anesthesia if you would prefer, in which case this may be done in the office under sterile conditions.

All our injections are performed using sterile technique and using image guidance. After a sterile cleaning of the site to be injected, local anesthesia will be used to numb the skin. The needle will be placed using image guidance. Medication will then be administered and needles removed. Bandages will be placed and you will be given post procedure instructions.

How quickly you get relief and for how long depends on what type of medication is used for your injection. 

• Typically steroid injections with local anesthetic work very quickly. Duration of effect will depend on the severity of arthritis, inflammation, and damage within the joint.
• Typically, regenerative medicine treatment has a slower onset of effect (four to eight weeks) and greater duration of effect with the potential to repair underlying damage within the joint as opposed to steroids which can impair wound healing.

The amount of relief is dependent upon the amount of inflammation, injury and duration, sometimes it can be complete relief, sometimes a subsequent injection is necessary to achieve more complete relief.

This outpatient injection procedure relieves hip, leg or buttock pain caused by arthritis or other damage to the hip joint.

This outpatient injection procedure relieves pain in the shoulder and arm caused by arthritis, injury or disorder.