What Is a Frozen Shoulder and How Is It Treated?
The name frozen shoulder gives you the first hint that this condition causes pain and stops shoulder movement. Why do you lose shoulder mobility, and how is it treated? Here’s what you need to know.
5 Reasons to Consider Joint Injections for Arthritis
Let’s face it: Living with arthritis can be very challenging. With few treatments and exercise being one of the best ways to ease your symptoms, it is difficult or impossible to do when your joints are stiff, swollen, and painful.
If conservative treatments aren’t helping, our Cascade Orthopedics & Sports Medicine Center, P.C., team offers another option: joint injections. Here, we list the top five benefits and types of joint injections associated with each.
1. Reduce pain and inflammation
When injecting a medication into a joint, we can deliver an exact dose and use real-time imaging to guide the needle and target specific tissues. You can’t get the same precision with oral medications. Precision is especially beneficial when the goal is relieving pain and inflammation.
We use injections containing corticosteroids (steroids) and local anesthetics to reduce these symptoms as quickly as possible while also delivering long-lasting results.
The anesthetic provides rapid but temporary pain relief, while the effect of steroids lasts longer because they’re potent anti-inflammatory medications. Each person has different results, but for many, steroids ease arthritis pain for 3-6 months or longer.
2. Increase mobility (return to activities)
Reducing pain and inflammation with steroids increases mobility. However, if you have osteoarthritis, you can also improve joint movement with hyaluronic acid injections.
Synovial fluid (inside joints) naturally contains hyaluronic acid. Hyaluronic acid is a thick substance that lubricates the joint and ensures smooth movement.
An injection to boost its levels (viscosupplementation) helps improve mobility and reduce inflammation, pain, and stiffness for up to six months.
3. Preserve joint health
Though arthritis progressively damages the joint, injections may help preserve the tissues and slow or stop degeneration.
Inflammation injures tissues and erodes bone. Lack of hyaluronic acid causes friction that damages the cartilage and bone. Since steroid and hyaluronic acid injections offset these problems, they may protect and preserve the joint.
Both injections also improve your ability to move and exercise. Exercise preserves your joints by increasing blood flow, triggering synovial fluid production, and reducing inflammation.
Another type of injection protects the joints and goes a step beyond to promote healing — and it’s the fourth reason to consider joint injections.
4. Promote healing
Joint injections containing bone marrow concentrate (BMC) and/or platelet-rich plasma (PRP) activate healing in the damaged tissues. Both treatments use natural healing cells obtained from your body.
BMC contains stem cells obtained from your bone marrow. Stem cells are the ultimate in healing because they replicate to create a new stem cell, which develops into the tissue needed to repair damaged cartilage, ligaments, tendons, muscles, and skin.
PRP comes from your blood and contains concentrated platelets. Platelets regulate inflammation and activate and accelerate healing.
5. Postpone or avoid joint replacement
After arthritis reaches an advanced stage, there’s such extensive joint damage that the only treatment option is joint replacement surgery.
The four benefits above can keep your joints healthy for as long as possible. As a result, joint injections may help you postpone or even avoid joint replacement.
Call Cascade Orthopedics & Sports Medicine Center, P.C., today or request an appointment online to learn if you’re a good candidate for joint injections.
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