Cortisone-Steroid-Injection
What are steroid injections and how are they used?
Some steroids occur naturally in the human body. Artificial steroids act like natural steroids to reduce inflammation.
They’re not the same as anabolic steroids used by bodybuilders to increase their muscle size and strength.
Steroid treatment for arthritis and related conditions can be taken as tablets or given as injections into the affected area.
Steroid injections are often recommended for people with rheumatoid arthritis and other types of inflammatory arthritis. They may also be recommended for osteoarthritis if your joints are very painful or if you need extra pain relief for a time. The injection can reduce inflammation, which in turn should reduce pain.
Steroid injections can’t treat the underlying cause of your condition, but they can treat the symptoms.
Hyaluronic Acid Injections
What is Hyaluronic Acid, and What are the injections used for?
If you have osteoarthritis in your knee, you might be able to get injections of hyaluronic acid. These are also known as hyaluronan injections. Hyaluronan injections are used to keep joints moving and reduce pain, especially when other treatments haven’t worked.
Hyaluronic acid is naturally found inside many joints in your body in the synovial fluid.
In a healthy joint, synovial fluid works as a lubricant, allowing the cartilage covering the ends of your joints to glide against one another. This keeps your joints healthy and moving freely. They have evidence to support their use, this can be researched within the NICE guidelines. Most of the research suggests hyaluronic acid injections are mainly beneficial for early/moderate stages of osteoarthritis, and are used to support joint nutrition, pain, and stiffness when many people are waiting for some time to have a joint replacement.