Injections into soft tissues and joints are often very effective in giving pain relief when the tissues are inflamed. The injection that you simply have had includes a small amount of Steroid or Ostenil that has an anti-inflammatory action and a local anaesthetic, which numbs the world temporarily.
Injections are regularly used to treat shoulder and elbow pain, as well as being a useful aid to diagnosis. Steroids have traditionally been used for this, but they do have a number of side effects. Hyaluronans (HA) are a new alternative to steroids and offer a number of benefits over steroids.
Cortisone (corticosteroid) injections, for individuals subject to drug testing under WADA (most professional and Olympic sports), are banned unless the athlete seeks a theraputic use exemption (TUE), including supporting documents from a physician.
Growth Factors are an essential part of the body’s healing process. These are molecules that trigger the various stages of the healing of tendons, ligaments and bones.
All body parts and organs are made up of tissues, which are made up of cells. Each body part has specific cells for that part. For example muscles are made up of muscle cells (myocytes) and bone is made of bone cells (osteocytes).
All these different cells originally develop from a single type of ‘blank cell’, called a stem cell. That is to say we all originated from one ‘blank cell’ which replicated to form different specialised cells.
In summary – Stem cells are cells which can transform into any type of cell in the body, therefore every structure in the body (nerves, blood vessels, muscles, bone etc.).
Injections can be done under image-guidance (ultrasound, CT or x-ray). These are more accurate and reduce the risk of injecting the wrong structures when compared with non-guided (‘blind’) injections.
