Steroidal injection? Am I too young?? Any advice welcome!

[Livia]

Hey y'all so i been suffering from knee bursitis for the past year now. It gets better then comes back...i recently suffered a trauma to the same knee & the mri showed a Ganglion cyst (bakers cyst?) in the back of my knee. The orthos want to give me a steroidal injection cuz its been like 4 months of physical therapy & recovery is slow..Im 29 years old & reluctant to take it as ive always heard it causes bad side effects, & the pain comes back stronger & more often. Im used to hearing once u take it it opens up a can of worms for ur knee & you'll never be rid of problems. Is this true??..Gosh I feel im waay too young for injections. I dont want to be dependent on them & continuously suffer from this age..Im not even 30 yet...

What do u guys suggest from ur experiences?? Is the shot bad ??

Thnx a lot

[SjoDry]

Hi Livia,

When we came back home from a trip to Rome, I had Baker's cysts behind both knees. I did get the injections and it helped greatly. I was just too miserable to not do it.

Good luck.
SjoDry

[Livia]

Hi Livia,

When we came back home from a trip to Rome, I had Baker's cysts behind both knees. I did get the injections and it helped greatly. I was just too miserable to not do it.

Good luck.
SjoDry

did u get any side effects or did the pain get back worse?

[irish]

The steroid injections are usually one time for something like you are having.. Generally people have good luck with them. Also, they do not affect a person like taking oral steroids. Generally they are in the system for a certain amount of time as opposed to the steroids that people take daily for long periods of time. There are times when we need to have an injection like this. The pain in a joint doesn't improve much from oral steroids as the steroids can get directly into the joint like the injection can.

Generally injections like this are given only 3-4 times a year when needed. That is the rule much of the time so that people don't have side effects from too much steroids. Ask your doc what his protocol is for these types of issues and injections. Good luck. irish

[Jenny]

I can?t count the number of injections I?ve had in various joints. My first was when I was about your age in my knee. I?ve been told as long as you don?t have more than 3 or 4 a year, they shouldn?t hurt you.

[Carolina]

Dear Livia,

I had injections in both knees and my right shoulder in the past year or so.  They did not help any of my pain.   My pain is related to bone on bone and not to trauma in the surrounding tissue.

I think that the swelling from trauma may be helped more by steroid injections, to reduce the swelling.

The steroids injections didn't help at all for the pain from the rubbing, catching, crunching, and collapsing (knees) which cause my pain.

I wanted to try the injections, because  I've been rejected for knee replacement surgery due to my profound Peripheral neuropathy.  And because I cannot imagine have a shoulder joint replaced. 

In 2016 I had steroid injections in my Lumbar Spine.  They helped for exactly 4 days.  Then I had surgery (a laminectomy at L3-4) which stopped the pain immediately.

Today I have an appointment with an Orthopedic Surgeon to discuss the MRI of my Cervical Spine. I am at the point where I'm HOPING for surgery. 

I imagine the doctor will want to try injections first.  I am not optimistic, but of course I'll follow his advice.

Regards, Elaine

[Sweetcheex76]

I don't think you are too young for the injection and it might help with the pain. Many people I know with knee problems get the steroid injections regularly and have great success. The steroid injection didn't work for me in the knee but I get them a couple of times a year in my left shoulder and it's amazing how the pain goes away. Another option is for you to get one of the hyaluronic acid injections. I've tried 2. (Can't remember the names offhand). One helped a little. The other didn't help at all but everyone's experience varies. Doctors found a Baker's cyst during my surgery for a torn meniscus but it kind of went away on its own.