I am glad your husband is recovering. Hopefully the injection will kick in on your shoulder and you will get some sleep. Rest always seems to help. God Bless.
Was the injection in the shoulder guided during ultrasound? If not, that is probably why you still have pain. Just giving a cortisone injection without ultrasound is hit and miss as to where the cortisone is going. It might not hit the inflammation. It is a waste of a valuable injection as well because you can only have about four in total.
The Dr who did it didn't use ultrasound, but he had a poke around my shoulder to hit the most painful point and marked it. He has done them for me before, so I am hopeful. Going back next week for the other shoulder. Signed off for another week.
I had mine done by a consultant radiologist at the hospital. The rheumy consultant stipulated that the injection had to be guided by ultrasound.
I felt the cortisone going in and pain relief was instantaneous and we could all see it on the screen hitting the inflammation. Pain relief was 90% for ten weeks. You just can't get that result with a random injection. The point also is that you can only have about four of those injections. I have suffered very badly with thrush over a period of 40 years and have to control my diet and take stuff for it, and suspect I am glucose intolerant. The cortisone does impair glucose tolerance and I had a really bad flare of thrush because of it.
If you don't target the inflammation, you are not getting the best results and benefit from the injection. I would not have thought it that difficult to get an ultrasound appt at the hospital for the injection - they gave me one straight away.
The benefit also is that the radiologist (or sonograper) gives you information while they are doing it, eg he did an ultrasound on my knees which the rheumy had not asked for (didn't find anything) but found a few things wrong unrelated to inflammatory arthritis, eg one of my knees is out of line. It is visibly swollen, which he agreed it was, but there was no inflammation. He also got the x-rays of my hands and zoomed in five times looking for any osteoarthritis.
I am very sensitive to all drugs - allergic to nearly all steroids and definitely all chemicals - but I do seem to get good effects from small amounts.
I have had ultrasound injections in my legs. Most probably going to have more in the New Year.
But my shoulder injections have never been and they have worked. It is working now. My last one in my right shoulder was put in by my Rheummy and he didn't guide it. I have a definite pain point and you feel it going into the right place.
I know gold standard is guided, but not all GP practices have the resources or training for ultrasound and waiting for a hospital one can take ages.
Maybe I misunderstood your post as you said "I didn't sleep well last night. Shoulder really hurt, but tonight, I have hit the Tramadol" so it sounded like the injection had not worked.
I didn't have a definite pain point. The whole of the shoulder, including across the top, and the whole of my upper arm were more or less paralysed which was bothering me more than the pain. The tendons passing through the shoulder joint were inflamed and these extend to the upper arm. I just could not imagine having both shoulders in that condition. My left one was OK but medication I took recently also relieved stiffness and stooping in the left shoulder which I had been unaware of.
If you are able to take more than four injections, you are lucky. I'm afraid what I went through with thrush ruled out any more injections for me as it was worse than the shoulder problem.
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Help for hubby!!
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