Steroid Injection can help relieve pain and inflammation in a specific area of your body. The most common areas for the injection are your ankle, elbow, hip, knee, shoulder, spine, or wrist. Even the small joints in your hands or feet might benefit from steroid shots. The injections usually contain a corticosteroid medication and a local anesthetic. Corticosteroids are powerful anti-inflammatory medications. Cortisone shots (steroid shot) can offer fast-acting relief of inflamed muscles, joints, tendons, and bursa.

Hip Joint Steroid Injections 

If the hip joint experiences arthritis, injury, or mechanical stress, one may experience hip, buttock, leg, or low back pain. The hip joint is a ball and socket joint located where the thigh bone meets the pelvis. Hip joint injections involve injecting a steroid shot directly into the joint. The injection can help diagnose the source of pain, as well as alleviate the discomfort. 

The injection itself only takes a few minutes, but the overall procedure will usually take between thirty and sixty minutes. After the hip joint injection procedure, the patient typically remains resting on the table for twenty to thirty minutes. Patients may or may not obtain pain relief in the first few hours after the injection, depending upon whether the joint injected is the primary source of the patient's pain. On occasion, the patient may feel numb or experience a slightly weak or odd feeling in the leg for a few hours after the injection. 

Cervical Steroid Injections

A Cervical Steroid Injection may be performed to relieve pain associated with inflammation around the neck's nerves. An injection delivers medication directly to coat the nerves in the area. Some cervical spine conditions can affect the nerves as they exit the spine through small holes on each vertebrae side. A Cervical Steroid Injection may be used to treat the symptoms from various conditions that may irritate the cervical nerve roots. For example: 

• A Cervical Herniated Disc may impinge on a nerve root
• A Degenerated Disc may cause local inflammation
• Cervical Osteoarthritis or Spinal Stenosis may reduce the nerves' space, resulting in inflammation and irritation to the nerves

Sacroiliac Joint Steroid Injections

A Sacroiliac Joint Steroid Injection includes a local anesthetic and a steroid medication injecting into the sacroiliac joint. Due to the numbing medicine used during this procedure, you may experience temporary pain relief afterward that may last several hours. The steroid medication may give longer-lasting pain relief and usually begins working after 24-48 hours. 

What happens during the actual procedure? 

After a doctor examines you and goes over the procedure's risks and benefits, he will ask you to sign a consent form. You will then be assisted to the x-ray table and made comfortable lying on your stomach. Your injection site will be cleansed with an antiseptic soap and alcohol and then covered by sterile drapes. The doctor will use a local anesthetic (numbing medicine) to numb the skin. X-ray guidance, called fluoroscopy, will be used so the practitioner can visualize the needle going into the area. The injection site will be washed, and a band-aid will be applied. You will be given verbal and written discharge instructions before going home. 

Note: The procedure cannot be performed if you have an active infection, flu, cold, fever, very high blood pressure, or if you are on blood thinners. Please make your doctor aware of any of these conditions. This is for your safety!