Dr. Joshua John-Ram Schacter warns that steroid injections before joint replacement carry serious risks, including infection and joint damage. Complications spike if surgery happens within three months of injection. Diabetic patients face even greater danger.
Steroid injections have significant risks. They increase your risk of complication after joint replacement so much that we know that if we do a knee replacement within three months of a steroid injection, it significantly increases your risk of complication. It can also have massive systemic complications with our diabetic patients and can cause all kinds of local and systemic soft tissue complications. Most important to remember is the infection and joint damage. But other complications can be metabolic disorders, ruptures of ligaments or tendons, and other problems. And so this is a medication that can be very effective. But in the face of effective, useful and safer alternatives, we here at Pinnacle really believe that steroid injections should be a thing of the past.
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