A cortisone injection in your shoulder starts you on the path to better health and a pain-free life. The injection works on a range of conditions and injuries that cause shoulder pain. Once your pain has gone and you can function again, you can begin physical therapy or other treatments that give your shoulder to a fuller range of motion and many pain-free days. Don’t let shoulder pain limit your life. Call NYC pain management to see if you qualify for a shoulder injection.
You can hurt your shoulder in an accident, through a work or sports-related injury, or by the continuing wear-and-tear of repetitive motions. The pain may be sudden or it may come on over time. Regardless how you got it, shoulder pain needs medical attention because it can get worse.
Shoulder steroid injections are common procedures for shoulder pain. They typically contain cortisone combined with a local anesthetic. The goal of a shoulder injection is to relieve your pain and reduce the swelling in your shoulder joint. The best injury doctor in New York, at pain management center, places the injection directly into your shoulder, where it hurts the most.
Your Pain Treatment Starts Here
There are many issues that can happen to your shoulder, so the doctor has to get the diagnosis right. Referred pain can originate in your back, but you feel it in your shoulder. Once you’re diagnosed with a shoulder injury or another medical condition, your treatment options narrow. Shoulder injections are often recommended along with physical therapy.
An Effective Shoulder Treatment
A cortisone injection for the shoulder can even ease discomfort up to your neck and down to your fingers. Chronic pain sufferers and athletes have benefited from shoulder joint injections for years. And as a result, they’ve been able to avoid changes to their livelihoods and physical activities.
While shoulder joint injections don’t generally cure your condition, they are the fastest and most effective way to improve your shoulder function and reduce the pain significantly. Cortisone is a type of corticosteroid that eases conditions resulting from inflammation. Shoulder steroid injections have been in common medical practice since 1951, and they’ve been highly successful treating a number of shoulder injuries and ailments, including:
- Rotator cuff injuries
- Shoulder arthritis
- Shoulder tendonitis
- Shoulder bursitis
- Frozen shoulder or adhesive capsulitis
Shoulder steroid injections contain corticosteroids, a safe compound that closely resembles a natural hormone called cortisol. The medicine tricks your body into reducing your immune system’s activity. This reaction results in significant decreases in swelling and pain. Additionally, the medicine includes a small percentage of a local anesthetic, which starts limiting pain immediately.
A Treatment Plan That’s Your Own
This entire process of a cortisone injection in your shoulder is a bit more involved than other injections. Before you’re given the injection, your pain management specialist may decide to draw some of your joint fluid for testing. The fluid can tell more about your shoulder problems, including whether you have an infection.
Directly injecting cortisone into your joint means you don’t have to take oral steroids, which must be increased over time. Higher doses of oral steroids increase your risk for side effects. Steroid injections are safer and more effective because they put the medication directly where it’s needed. The injection can be a standalone treatment, but it’s more commonly incorporated into other treatments, such as physical therapy.
Prior Preparation
Consult with your best NYC pain management doctor about any medications you’re taking. You may need to stop taking certain medications or dietary supplements before receiving your shoulder injections. Due largely to the included anesthetic, these steroid injections for shoulder pain are relatively painless and well-tolerated.
While your results depend on your medical condition and its severity, the pain you’re experiencing generally passes over the next 48 hours. Following a shoulder injection, you can apply ice to relieve any discomfort you may feel at the injection site. Your pain management specialist advises against the use of heating pads. If discomfort of your injection site lasts longer than 48 hours, schedule a follow up appointment as soon as you’re able.
Don’t let shoulder pain disrupt your life when pain relief is as close as Midtown Manhattan. Contact Pain Management NYC today for a shoulder joint injection to relieve your discomfort. If left untreated, your shoulder pain will get worse.
Leon Reyfman, MD, is a top-rated, best-in-class interventional pain management doctor. He is a nationally recognized pain relief specialist and is among the top pain care doctors in New York City and the country. He is an award-winning expert and contributor to prominent media outlets.
Dr. Leon Reyfman has been recognized for his thoughtful, thorough, modern approach to treating chronic pain. He has been named a “top pain management doctor in New York” and one of “America’s Top Doctors™” for advanced sports injury treatments. Among other accolades, he was voted by peers as a “Castle Connolly Top Doctors™” and “New York Super Doctors™”. Dr. Leon Reyfman was a part of the medical team at the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.