Injections are something that a lot of people with musculoskeletal pain may use to help with recovery.
However, it can be confusing depending on how well your healthcare provider explains your options.
Saline: A study by Gasendam et al. found that saline performed just as well as other injectables in hip joints.
Corticosteroids: These down-regulate your immune response, therefore helping minimize pain. However, it has been shown to also slow healing, accelerate joint degeneration, bone breakdown. This type of injection has been historically overused despite the complications coming to light over the years. However, they can be great from pain reduction to allow the patient to complete treatment like physiotherapy
PRP: is a blood product that is made from blood that is spun in a centrifuge and the platelets are extracted. They are then injected into the injury. These types of injections are greate to stimulate the healing process with your own blood. However, it may not be covered by insurance, and it isn’t widely avlabale yet.
Prolotherapy: This is an injection of an irritant soliution into a koint, ligament or tendon to help relice pain. Typically, sessions are every 2-6 weeks for months, adding up to 3-6 total treatments, depending on the reaction. The injections kick the bodies own natural healing process into gear and can help with pain in many areas of the body.
Nerve Block: This is an injection that uses anasthesia around a specific nerve that is believed to be the root of pain. It can be used as treatment, as well as a way to test for which nerves are the pain generators.
Facet Block: Similar to the above nerve block, but into the facet joint, which is one of the joints of the veterbrae in the back. The numbing agent gets injected into the joint to either diagnose or treat the offending pain generator.
Injections can a helpful part of your care, and guidance from your chiropractor, MD, physiotherapist and other providers can be invaluable.