Cortison shot for shoulder....

[Parabellum]

Background
Went to the ortho. 2 docs saw me.
Clavicular osteolysis, possibe bicep tendonitus, and possible labrum tear. He aslos asked if I felt my shoulder was loose.

MRI is scheduled and I'm going to have it scopped to repair the osteolsys after the MRI.

The doc said I was too heavy for the mri machine, lol.

MRI came back normal. No problems anywhere. 2 resident docs say that the Clavicular osteolysis doesn't seem to be that bad and since it is not causing me pain when touched it's fine???

They say there is some very minor inflamation of the bicep tendon and the bursa is inflamed.

They do not want to scope it. They want to give me a cortizone shot and some physical therapy. I guess I'll take the shot and see if it help if not I'll push for the scope.




Hypothetically if I did take a cortisone shot what damage will it cause? I read that it weakens tendons and eats away at cartilage. How can I stop the negative effects of cortisone?

 

[trinidad]

Can't answer that for you but I recently had 2 shots in each shoulder over the course of a year....hurts like a motha!

 

[RADAR]

cortisone masks pain,so give the injury plenty of rest and don't risk re-injuring the area.
The shots are pretty painful.


RADAR

 

[Bulldog_10]

I wouldn't take the shot, personally. Like RADAR said it masks the pain...pain is good for you, it will prevent you from doing movements that might make your condition worse.

 

[daveyboy]

A cortisone shot was the first thing they tried on my shoulder a couple of years ago. Didn't do a f'ng thing.....absolutely nothing. Got the MRI after that & ended up having it scoped. I take celebrex occassionally now if it flares up. As I said, the shot didn't work for me but everybody's different. How much strength have you lost because of it? Did they say anything about or mention arthritus?

 

[Parabellum]

They did not say anything about arthritus. They did say I had bursitus.

I lost a ton of strength since November. I try not aggrevate it.

Last time in January I benched 315 with a ton of pain and have not tried it since. I have pain at the bottom of the movement, last 2 inches if I use a bar with no weight. As soon as I put weight on I fell it through out the movement.

 

[Fat_Sumo]

Cortisone did nothing for me either! Sounds like we have the exact same shoulder problem!

 

[daveyboy]

That sounds messed up Parabellum. The bicep tendon I believe is what flares up on me on occassion. Any movement like dips, declines or flat bench where you really go deep in stretching out the chest seems to aggravate it. When I bench now, I put a little pad on my chest & let the bar come down & touch that before I press it back up. That way I'm not going quite as deep with it & overextending it like before. That seems to work pretty good & I still get to use somewhat heavier weights without the pain. You just have to figure out little ways on your own to get around it. Also they docs gave me some exercises to do with one of those rubberband things to help strengthen the smaller stabilizer muscles in the shoulder. Those worked but you gotta do them daily to really notice that they're helping you. Good luck man.

 

[Zyglamail]

Background
They say there is some very minor inflamation of the bicep tendon and the bursa is inflamed.

They do not want to scope it. They want to give me a cortizone shot and some physical therapy. I guess I'll take the shot and see if it help if not I'll push for the scope.




Hypothetically if I did take a cortisone shot what damage will it cause? I read that it weakens tendons and eats away at cartilage. How can I stop the negative effects of cortisone?

It will basically eliminate all potential healing for months to come. Its the absolute worse thing you can do for tendon/ligament damage. Inflamation is ESSENTIAL for proper healing of ligament/tendon tissue. Do a search here on prolotherapy, I have made many posts on the subject. Also, spend some time at prolonews.com and find out how to rapidly and effectivly deal with your pain.

 

[under]

I have had the injections, worked for a time, so went to the gym lifted heavy, then back to square one, just seems to mask the problem or pain. I am now seeing a physio, she has put me on a machine like one of thise electrode things that makes your muscles contract and spasm, don't know what it is called, but with this one you dont feel anything, so far so good, it has taken down the swelling, am getting less pain after shoulder and chest days.

under

 

[foozr]

If you have insurance get it fixed right. I messed around with mine for 7 years and kept reinjuring it. I finally really did a number completely tore everything in my shoulder, tore my bicep muscle complete away from the bone. Believe me, you don't want to get to that point. On a good note, my shoulder is stronger than ever, although its mostly titanium . My max bench was 375 before surgery. A year later its 465.

 

[athlete0185]

i can say that a cortison shot is the best thing i did for my shoulder. i seperated it and it was absolutely horrible. the doc gave me i think a total of 3 shots over a 3 month period and it helped it heal tremondously. i did a lot of exercises for it like PT and worked my back back up in the gym. sure it hurt for a bit, but by the time the shots wore off my shoulder felt like it was getting back to normal. i was playing a sport so there would be times where i would get hit and reinjure it. i dont think the cortisone masks the pain all that much to be honest. if you re hurt it while you got a shot, youll know it for sure. then you know just to lay off. it will never be 100% but my shoulder is now stronger than it ever was. the shots...oh man they were probably the most painful thing ive experienced with a needle. it burns like a mother f'er.

 

[Zyglamail]

i can say that a cortison shot is the best thing i did for my shoulder. i seperated it and it was absolutely horrible. the doc gave me i think a total of 3 shots over a 3 month period and it helped it heal tremondously. i did a lot of exercises for it like PT and worked my back back up in the gym. sure it hurt for a bit, but by the time the shots wore off my shoulder felt like it was getting back to normal. i was playing a sport so there would be times where i would get hit and reinjure it. i dont think the cortisone masks the pain all that much to be honest. if you re hurt it while you got a shot, youll know it for sure. then you know just to lay off. it will never be 100% but my shoulder is now stronger than it ever was. the shots...oh man they were probably the most painful thing ive experienced with a needle. it burns like a mother f'er.

Your right, cortisone doesnt mask the pain, it eliminates inflamation and in turn nearly eliminates pain. Do cortisone shorts hurt? Sure they do, ive had them in the eye socket(long story, they sting like a bitch). Do they reduce the pain? They sure do and they do it so well that you sacrifice the longevity of the joint and recovery.

Cortisone is CLINICALLY PROVEN to inhibit proliferation. Injuries are common place among athletic people and it seems that those here who are so eager to blow off the claims of modern medicine practitioners when their veiws dont coincide with their own, I find it extremely ironic how many of these same people flock to the doc and blindly follow their advice in regards to injuries.

Since people generally dont read this kind of stuff until injured I will cover the basics once again. Connective tissue cells have a turnover rate of 300-500 days under normal conditions. That means if an injury occurs and you do things to prevent or slow down the healing process if could be a year to a year and a half for the injury to be addressed. Everybody is on an anti-inflamatory kick and view inflamation is the bad guy. Granted in the case of an alergic reaction it can be a dangerous or deadly thing, but when its related to fibroblasts and chrondrocytes the inflamatory response is directly linked to the process of repair. When the cells walls break/rupture due to an injury arachidonic acid is released (along with other factors like glycosylated proteins) which atracts granulocytes and fibroblasts. Granulocytes include macrophages and neutrophils which clean up damaged debris at the injury(ie chemotaxis).

Shortly after the injury and cleanup of debris the healing actually begins and cell proliferation takes place. Its this cascade of events that causes the injury to heal and taking anti-inflamatories, using ice and worst of all cortisone injections greatly reduce or prevent proper healing leaving you in a weakened state and more likely to reinjure the same area. This is where the downward spiral begins because upon reinjury most will likely follow the same old methods and leave themselves further weakened.

You are probably correct though, with the method you chose your injury probably never will be 100%, especially if its an old one, but it could have been.

 

[Parabellum]

Thanks.

 

[GoldenDelicious]

mate it all depends. corticosteroids do have sides, and for some people, are inneffective. for others, they are excellent.

bottom line is, its probably worth giving it a go, but be wary of pain masking as well as tendon weakness, so take th opportunity to let it rest, and heal well.

expecting to take the shot and then continue along as if nothing has happened is a big mistake, imo

cheers mate

 

[nuh_mizer]

I had the same kind of injury and had a cortizone injection. It was sore for about 10-12 days, but I think it helped in the end.

But what really cured me was when I realized my form during benching exercises was way off. After I made some adjustments, it was better in about 2 weeks (it had been bothering me for over a year).