Not asking for medical advice. Injection in the knee to help pain from osteoarthritis.
Yeah, twice, neither one helped enough to have another.
A number of years ago I had an injection in my left knee, that was very painful at the time. (I don’t know whether it was Euflexxa or something else.) Within one minute, the pain was gone, and hasn’t bothered me very much since then.
But then the right knee started acting up. I had already had arthroscopic surgery in that knee, decades ago. For some reason the injections are having no effect. The doctor says there’s no cartilage left, it’s just bone-against-bone. I’m having it replaced next year.
panache45, by your description, I’d bet you got a steroid/lidocaine shot, not a hyaluronate shot like the OP is asking about.
As for Euflexxa, it helps some folks for a while, to varying degrees. It may keep a person functioning longer, and help avoid replacing the knee for a while (a desirable thing to do in a younger person, as artificial knees wear out, and replacing them a 2nd time has a very low rate of success.) Some of my patients report significant relief of pain and improvement of function on it.
On the other hand, I’ve a number of patients who have not got much benefit.
Give it a shot, if your doc is recommending it. It’s pretty low risk for a possibly significant improvement. But there are no guarantees…
I’ve had a few Synvisc shots. The doctor used a cold spray on the knee before injection, and was very good with the needle. I barely felt it.
I was instructed to be very gentle with the knee for…I think one week? after. No jogging. No running. No golf. After that, I was allowed to act normally.
It really seemed to help me. Before the shot, I couldn’t jog a quarter of a mile without being in pain. After the shot (and some training), I was back to running 5Ks.
As QtM says, it doesn’t work for everyone. But what matters is if it works for you.
-D/a
[QUOTE=Qadgop the Mercotan]
{snip} [Euflexxa is] pretty low risk for a possibly significant improvement. But there are no guarantees…
[/QUOTE]
I looked for info on using it in ankles, but found nothing. Where can I get more info?
Right now, use in ankles is controversial. One very well designed study showed no benefit to synvisc (hyaluronidate) over saline injections.
My husband has had several rounds of Euflexxa in both knees, and it did help him. He has now had one knee replacement, but his orthopedist recommended going with the Euflexxa on the other knee as long it’s effective. So far, so good.