Even in a small joint, osteoarthritis can have a big impact on your life if it means you can’t hold a pencil, knit, or engage in other activities that you enjoy or need to do. Having a stiff or sore knee can really impact your quality of life, making it hard to get around. Getting a shot of corticosteroids directly into a sore joint can reduce pain and inflammation quickly and effectively.
Corticosteroids are related to hormones naturally made in your adrenal glands. Corticosteroid injections are often referred to as steroid shots or injections.
Corticosteroid shots relieve inflammation faster and more directly than traditional anti-inflammatory medications taken by mouth. And a single injection doesn’t cause side effects such as stomach upset, which often go along with those drugs. Corticosteroids can also be taken by mouthor intravenously to relieve inflammation throughout the body, but when injected into a joint, their effects -- good and bad -- are mostly limited to that joint.
Getting a Corticosteroid Injection: What to Expect
Most injections into the knee or a smaller joint, like that at the base of the thumb, are simple procedures that can be done in a doctor’s office. When performed by an experienced physician, the injection is only mildly uncomfortable.
First, the doctor cleans the skin in the area with Betadine or other antiseptic. If the joint is puffy and filled with fluid, the doctor may insert a needle into the joint to withdraw the excess fluid and examine it. Removing the fluid rapidly relieves pain also, because it reduces pressure in the joint and may expedite healing. Next, the doctor uses a different needle to inject the corticosteroid into the joint.
People feel almost immediate relief after an injection because the corticosteroid is usually mixed with a local anesthetic. Several hours later, the corticosteroid begins to relieve inflammation. The relief usually lasts from several weeks to several months.
Injecting a large joint, such the hip, is more complicated and may require radiologic imaging to help the doctor guide the needle into the joint. Experienced rheumatologists, orthopedists, anesthesiologists, and radiologists may inject the facet joints of the lower spine.
What are the Risks of Corticosteroid Injections?
Despite their benefits, corticosteroids are associated with a range of potentially dangerous side effects, including increased risk of infection, weight gain, gastrointestinal ulcers and bleeding, osteoporosis, elevated blood pressure and blood glucose levels, and eye problems, including cataracts and glaucoma.
Injecting corticosteroids directly into a joint minimizes or eliminates most of these side effects. However, there are some special, though uncommon, risks of joint injection. They include:
- Injury to the joint tissues, particularly with repeated injections
- Thinning of joint cartilage
- Weakening of the ligaments of the joint
- Increased inflammation in the joint caused by a corticosteroid that has crystallized
- Irritation of the nerves, caused by the needle during an injection or by the medication
- Introduction of infection into the joint
- Whitening of the skin or local thinning of the skin at the injection site
Frequent corticosteroid injections may lead to joint damage. If you have an infection in or around a joint or you’re allergic to one or more of the drugs that are injected, you should not get a joint injection.
WebMD Medical Reference
Reviewed By Louise Chang, MD
