Cortisone Injection - AC joint

Simmo72

In July this year I had a bad crash, tearing my shoulder AC joint and ligaments along with other broken bits - but the bike was ok

4 months on and religiously following the physio exercises I have my movement back but it still smarts, sometimes a lot. It feels like 2 months to get where I am now but I haven’t seen any difference noticeable difference since. I.e you wince when pushing open a door, or reaching for something and its sore as hell after a ride.

My doctor seems more than happy to give me high strength pain killer repeat prescriptions but I’ve stopped taking them, it’s not healthy –it does say don’t take for more than 3 days- and he’s been giving them to me for 3 months, I'm just not a tablet person.

I was wondering about getting a cortisone injection and whether this is something you can easily persuade a doctor to agree to? It might help, it might not but interested to see if others have had any experience of something similar. I realise its another drug but its not just like popping a pill to mask the pain, but it might actually reduce the problem.

Zingzang

Simmo72 wrote:

In July this year I had a bad crash, tearing my shoulder AC joint and ligaments along with other broken bits - but the bike was ok

4 months on and religiously following the physio exercises I have my movement back but it still smarts, sometimes a lot. It feels like 2 months to get where I am now but I haven’t seen any difference noticeable difference since. I.e you wince when pushing open a door, or reaching for something and its sore as hell after a ride.

My doctor seems more than happy to give me high strength pain killer repeat prescriptions but I’ve stopped taking them, it’s not healthy –it does say don’t take for more than 3 days- and he’s been giving them to me for 3 months, I'm just not a tablet person.

I was wondering about getting a cortisone injection and whether this is something you can easily persuade a doctor to agree to? It might help, it might not but interested to see if others have had any experience of something similar. I realise its another drug but its not just like popping a pill to mask the pain, but it might actually reduce the problem.

Whether cortisone will help depends a lot on what is causing your pain. Shoulder injuries can be very complex. Presumably you had an MRI scan showing the nature and extent of the initial trauma. My question to the doctor/physio would be why am I still getting pain this far on from the accident? Is the shoulder still not fully healed or is there perhaps some impingement for example taking place within the shoulder?

In an ideal world you'd have another MRI scan to get to the bottom of things and see what's going on inside so that an informed decision can be made about the best way forward. If you're an NHS patient under a consultant the best move would be to see your GP and say that despite your best efforts the pain is not resolving and that you'd like a referral to see the specialist again.