26 May How Anti-Inflammatory Joint Injections Treat Chronic Pain
Anti-inflammatory injections can relieve nerves that keep sending out signals of pain due to compression or joints that hurt due to arthritis wear and tear. Since these chemicals relieve inflammation in general, they reduce swelling and heat in addition to pain. The needle is used to penetrate into the joint or area around the nerve so the medications are delivered right where they are needed. Soft tissue can also be treated successfully with this type of therapy. Mile High Spine & Pain Center is committed to educating you on all your options for treating your chronic pain.
How Do Anti-Inflammatory and Joint Injections Work?
Anti-inflammatory joint injections offer you precise treatment effects because they are inserted right in the source of your pain to stop it in its tracks. The small needle that delivers the medication to your joint or nerve allows us a mechanism to provide you with immediate results to your inflammation and pain from nerve, soft tissue or joint injuries.
What to Expect with Steroid Injections
Steroid injections administer instant pain relief by delivering local anesthetic and anti-inflammatory steroid medications into the area or joint in which they are injected. Areas that can benefit from steroid injections include:
- The spine: the epidural space, in the contact areas of the spine such as (facet joints) and SI (sacroiliac) joints
- Peripheral joints: hips, knee, shoulders, elbows, ankles, plantar fascia, hamstrings, and trigger fingers
- Soft tissues
Steroid injections work to reduce inflammation to eradicate your chronic pain and return your range of motion and mobility. Conditions that are addressed with steroid injections include: bulging disc issues, back pain, neck pain, chronic headaches and migraines, Arthritis, Sciatica, shoulder inflammation, pinched nerve, and knee pain due to injuries, age, or joint degeneration.
Effects of Joint Injections
The effects of joint injections vary from person to person. It also depends on the dose you are given. You and a member of our Mile High Spine & Pain Center team will work together to determine what works best for your condition. Most patients will experience numbness and/or relief from your symptoms for up to six hours after the injection. Prior symptoms may then return and may possibly be somewhat more intense than usual for a day or two. The most noticeable effects of the steroids usually require 2-3 days to take kick in, but in some cases can take as long as 10-14 days. It is sometimes advantageous to administer a second or third injection to achieve adequate pain relief. If your pain is not improved after a predetermined period of time, we will investigate other possible sources for your pain and determine further evaluation and treatments.
The Advantages Of Anti-Inflammatory Injections
Not every patient is a good candidate for anti-inflammatory injections. You and a provider at Mile High Spine & Pain Center will discuss your current health and medical history to decide if you would benefit from anti-inflammatory injections. Some of documented benefits of this treatment include, but are not limited to the following:
- Precise, localized pain relief. Irritation in just one joint/area can be solved without affecting the rest of your body.
- Prevent arthritic progression. Adding a replacement substance/lubricant to a knee joint can help decrease further deterioration caused by arthritis
- Long-lasting results. One injection could last weeks.
- Few if any side effects. Unlike surgical options, you will not be missing work for weeks, or even a day!
- Restored range of motion. Relieving inflamed muscles and nerves helps you move more freely.
- Reliability. Injections work on patients that usually don’t respond to other pain killers.
- Fast-acting results. There is no need for hours of treatment in the office and your results are immediately noticeable.
Important to Note
If you are using any blood thinners ideally, they should be stopped 5-7 days prior to the procedure and one should not eat or drink anything four hours prior to the test to ensure maximum safety/results. Please bring any previous x-rays, CT, or MRI films with you to your exam.
What Side Effects and Risks Are There?
As with any treatment that introduces things your body hasn’t tried before there are possible side effects and risks to be aware of. Possible side effects of steroid injections include: facial redness, occasional low-grade fevers or flu-like symptoms, hiccups, sweating, anxiety, insomnia, headaches, increased heart rate, increased urination, generalized swelling, and abdominal cramping or bloating. You may have one, none, or a combination of these following an anti-inflammatory injection. These side effects occur in less than 5% of patients and commonly disappear within a few days after the injection. If your symptoms are lasting more than a week, please contact our office. There is a small risk of infection (although the skin is cleaned thoroughly with an antiseptic solution), and a small amount of bleeding may occur.
If there is a possibility that you are pregnant, please notify your physician prior to or at the time of your procedure. If you have any additional questions, please do not hesitate to contact our office. We will be more than happy to answer any questions you may have.
Call for a Consultation
It is important to remember that while anti-inflammatory injections are great temporary treatments for pain, they cannot resolve the originating cause of the problem. We suggest that you use these injections in conjunction with other treatments at our office to solve the root cause of your issues. Mile High Spine & Pain Center physicians use injections to offer you quick, effective, fast-acting relief, but they are not a solution to your problem, nor are they an option that you could continue indefinitely. It is crucial to follow up with further diagnostics and other complementary treatments. Investing in inflammation reduction before chiropractic care or spinal adjustments will make them more effective in the long run. With ongoing treatment while your injections are working on your pain and inflammation, you could discover that you are free of swelling and pain when the injections wear off and the ongoing treatments have resolved the issue. Call (720) 507-0080 today to schedule your free consultation and to get on the road to pain-free, active living!