Steroid injections are usually administered to a patient with osteoarthtrits of the knees. It helps relieve chronic pain and discomfort. They are thought to reduce some of the inflammatory changes that causes the joint to be painful and stiff with movement, particularly in the morning.
According to a group of studies, arthritis steroid injections provide temporary relief of joint pain. Patients reportedly have significantly lower levels of pain during the week after the injections. Side effects were rare except for pain during the injection procedure.
The advantage to getting this treatment is it can provide immediate relief from pain. It may allow you a few weeks to a few months pain relief so you can start an exercise program to strengthen the knees and the surrounding muscles. It can also help alleviate the pain until other medications prescribed by your doctor start to work.
There are certain concerns, however, to steroid injections. Repeated injections could lead to further destructions of the joint space, although previous studies showed that joint deterioration usually take place after two years of regular injections.
The bottom line is, arthritis steroid injections are best used to provide short-term relief of pain until an exercise program or physical therapy could be started. They should not be considered as a long term solution to arthritis.
From Dr. Kristie Leong, MD of eHow:
If you have painful osteoarthritis of the knees, should you get arthritis steroid injections? The advantage to getting this treatment is that it can provide prompt pain relief. This can be helpful if you need immediate pain control until the other medications your doctor prescribed start to work. They probably shouldn’t be used as a long-term solution to pain since no one is sure whether they do harm if given over a long period of time. Plus, if your osteoarthritis is advanced, you may not get the same benefits as someone with a milder form of the disease. There’s also the problem of pain during the injection process. Some people consider the prospect of getting an injection into a joint such as the knee to be difficult to tolerate.
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