Can Injections Help Manage My Arthritis?

If you’re struggling with joint pain and inflammation that’s placing considerable limits on your life, you’re in good company. The Arthritis Foundation reports that more than 92 million adults in the United States have doctor-diagnosed arthritis or arthritis symptoms.

Unfortunately, there’s no cure for arthritis, leaving millions of people to manage the condition as best they can. If you’re not keen on the idea of taking daily medications or undergoing a surgery, such as joint replacement, there are effective options in the form of joint injections.

At Valliant Life Medical, our team of integrative health experts prefers nonsurgical approaches to musculoskeletal issues like arthritis. To that end, we offer a full complement of effective services that can help you better manage joint pain and inflammation, and joint injections certainly top the list.

Here’s a look at the joint injections we offer and how they can help you live a full and active life when you have arthritis.

Joint injections

If you want immediate relief of your joint pain, few treatments work as quickly and effectively as joint injections. These injections contain two ingredients: a local anesthetic for the pain and a strong anti-inflammatory agent.

Whether you’re dealing with arthritic knees or pain and inflammation in your hips, we inject the medications into the joint. The local anesthetic goes to work immediately to relieve the discomfort, while the anti-inflammatory medications take a few days to relieve the swelling inside your joint so you can move more freely.

As for results, they vary from one patient to the next, but most patients realize pain relief and improved function for several months.

Platelet-rich plasma injections

If you want a longer-term solution for arthritis, we’ve had great success with platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injections. With this form of regenerative medicine, we tap your own platelets and redirect them into your damaged joints.

The platelets in your blood contain growth factors that initiate tissue healing, as well as cytokines that address inflammation. To access these regenerative resources, we draw a sample of your blood and separate out the platelets in a centrifuge, creating a concentrate that we inject directly into your joints.

In most cases, we recommend a series of PRP injections, which we space apart to allow time for each to heal damaged tissues in your joints. As you progress through your PRP injections, you should realize gradual results as the soft tissues in your joint regenerate and strengthen and the inflammation subsides.

After your joint injections

While joint injections can go a long way toward better managing your arthritis symptoms, we highly recommend that you approach the problem from every angle possible, including adding physical therapy and chiropractic care.

As we mentioned, our goal is to help you avoid invasive solutions like surgery, and a great way to do that is to strengthen, stretch, and align the tissues and structures around your arthritic joints. 

If you’d like to learn more about the comprehensive and expert care we can provide for your arthritis, please contact our office in Fort Worth, Texas, to set up a consultation.