Dr. Joshua John-Ram Schacter explains why steroid injections mask knee pain instead of healing it. They wear off quickly, damage joints over time, and raise infection risk if you need surgery within three months. He advocates addressing root causes like weight gain and deconditioning instead.
Within three months of a steroid injection.
We really wouldn't want to do a knee replacement within three months of a steroid injection, because we know that the steroid significantly increases your risk of infection after knee replacement. When we do a steroid injection, we're doing that to relieve the patient of pain. But just like everything else we do in modern American medicine, it's an episodic treatment. You come in with a problem, we have a short term fix, and we're just kicking the can down the road to try and buy you some time with relief. Well, the problem with that strategy is that, sure, we give you a little bit of relief of pain, but it's essentially masking your symptoms. It's not dealing with any of the other problems that can contribute to your joint pain, like unwanted weight gain, difficulty with exercise, deconditioning, all manner of problems that can contribute to your joint pain, and it's worsening your joint as you go. So every time you get a steroid injection, not only does it mask your symptoms and give you a little bit of symptom relief, but it's actually damaging your joint as we do it.
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