Steroid Injections – Effective course of treatment for shoulder pain

1. Steroid Injections – Effective course of treatment for shoulder pain Steroids are often spoken of, in a rather dismissive tone, given its bad reputation for causing serious side effects. However, local application of steroids especially local / regional injections of steroid are one of the best blessings of the medicine world. For e.g. local bursitis or inflammation in the shoulder may take days to respond to rest, cold fomentation or medicines, but one local injection of thesteroid in the shoulder gives you instant relief. In intractable painful conditions of the shoulder, it is even more important to give local steroid injections. The only caution to be used is touse it in the correct site and for the correct indication. For e.g. a sub-acromial bursitis will readily respond to sub-acromial injection, an intra-articular injection may be best used in tendon inflammation. Frozen shoulder responds very well to steroid injections. There are different preferences w.r.t the site of steroid injections is case of a frozen shoulder. However, unequivocally a sub-acromial injection does not seem to work in case of a frozen shoulder. Injecting in the gleno-humeral joint space (a.k.a intra articular) has been a practice with some physicians. But an intra articular injection fails as often as it succeeds. The best outcomes in frozen shoulder treatment are obtained by injecting steroids in the Supra scapular nerve (SSN) space. There are many methods advocated to practice SSN space injection. In this course of shoulder pain treatment, the steroid injection works to reduce the pain and improves the exercise range of the affected individual. Though repeated administration of steroid injections (more than two or three) aren’t usually recommended. If the problem keeps coming back, your doctor will probably suggest further investigation into the issue or other alternative treatment for shoulder pain. Sometimes, the pain may be worse for a short period of time after the injection but this doesn't mean it has gone wrong. Be patient with the treatment and rest it out. You should seek further medical attention only if the pain continues for more than a day or more after being administered the injection. Steroid injections are generally reported to be safe and well tolerated with the rare occurrence of mild pain. Also, in many cases, Injections may be carried out with the aid of ultrasound images. The use of ultrasound in the treatment allows the inflamed tissues to be seen on a monitor to ensure direct and precise administration of injections in the affected area.