Looking hard at this for my achy knees.
Any experiences-yea or nay?
Thanks
I’ve done it for my ankle, twice. The injections are not fun at all (each time I’ve ended up needing to use a cane or crutches for a few days afterward), but the long-term pain relief is significant.
I’m looking at this myself for a bad knee. But first I have to see my ortho surgeon about the damn bone spurs that have grown in since my first surgery.
My wife did it twice for her knee, at six-month intervals. After the first one, she noticed a huge improvement. The second one, though… at best, it did nothing. Her knee was back to being as bad or worse than before the first shot and the second one did nothing to help.
So… result vary, even on the same person.
She’s had some surgery now instead and we’ll wait another six months to see whether that was enough or if she should just get a knee replacement.
My spouse used Orthovisc in the knee and it didn’t help.
J.
I had it in one knee, then the next year in both knees. In each case it helped, but only for around six months, and the benefit was not significant enough that I would go through the expense of having it again.
Except that it’s my husband’s experience - this, almost exactly. Tony eventually had knee replacement in June 2010. Synvisc allowed him to delay a little longer, and it did help for a while, but not long-term.
Is that that synthetic joint fluid stuff? I tried that. Mostly it helped a little, but not enough to put up with the pain of the injections.
For me it was a series of three shots in each knee, at one week intervals. Oddly, on the days that I had appointments for the second and third shots, I woke up with both knees feeling great. It was like they were trying to say “see, you don’t need to do that to us again - really - trust us.”
When I mentioned it to the doctor, he chuckled and said that he’d heard other people say the same thing. So the treatment may not have been successful long, or even medium term; but I got two good mornings out of it.
Would it be so difficult to include a link with the OP?
This is 2014. There is this One Weird Thing called google now. Perhaps you have heard of it? AKA search engines? No? Does not ring a bell?
Well then, LMGTFY.
If someone is looking for personal experiences why in the world do you think that a link providing a lot of google experts the tool they need to provide unwanted input to have value? The last thing the OP wants is a bunch of douchbags to look it up on wiki.
Bill Door, did your insurance plan not cover any of it? What did it run you, if you don’t mind me asking?]
dracoi-so you can have it more than once, like every six months?
I honestly think I am delaying the inevitable, but hey, that’s the point.
chiroptera–so sorry to put you thru all the agonies of looking something up that you didn’t know about. You see, if you HAD had personal experience with Synvisc, then you’d know it, and wouldn’t have to look it up. See how that works? Thanks, Bill Door.
The total cost for the series of five injections for both knees was $2,145. 60% was covered by my insurance plan, so my end came to $860.00. Then of course, they made me get it from a mail order drug company, so my physician who normally only charges for the initial diagnoses because he makes enough money off the medication to waive the office visit fee charged me for the four follow up injections so the five co-pays totaled another $150. Call it a thousand dollars all told.
I understand some products now are three injections instead of five, and it definitely helped, but only about as much as taking 1600 mg of Ibuprofen a day, and Ibuprofen is pretty darn cheap. Some people don’t tolerate Ibuprofen as well as I do, and long term it can cause problems, so eventually I’ll need a better solution.
Well, injections every 6 months beats the current once every 3 months of steroid and lidocaine injections I currently get (we know it won’t hurt the joint…because there is literally no cartilage between the bones).
Might be worth a shot, for me.
And how’s the pain mentioned above?
I have had two experiences with Synvisc and something that was similar, but not Synvisc. My problem is kneecaps that don’t track vertically, so they start to carve grooves in the cartilage underneath, FYI.
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Synvisc every three weeks for three sessions. During this time, I took two Aleve twice a day. The idea was to allow the Aleve to get rid of inflammation without letting friction create more. This didn’t work, and I had knee surgery (a lateral release - avoid this if you can!)
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A couple of years after my surgery, I reinjured my knee. Half a year after the injury, I went to another orthopedic doctor. He tried something that is not-Synvisc-but-does-the-same-thing. This time, it was once a week for three weeks. It worked amazingly well. I was so happy to be able to move that I started doing martial arts. I was fidgety and desperate to move around, because I had been in pain so long that it felt spectacular to have it gone.
One note - the first doctor just kind of gave me a shot. It was behind my kneecap, and hurt but it wasn’t too bad (for reference, I stayed awake to watch my lateral release on the camera, so I might be a weirdo). The second doctor treated the shots like a Big Deal. She used a set of gloves to open up the materials, then another set to clean my knee, and another set to do the injection. She said that she was so careful because an infection behind the knee is very, very hard to treat because the blood flow doesn’t get there too well.
My insurance covered the shots, but it was a special permission kind of thing. I don’t know how hard the doctors had to fight to get the clearance.
[QUOTE=Mithril]
The second doctor treated the shots like a Big Deal. She used a set of gloves to open up the materials, then another set to clean my knee, and another set to do the injection. She said that she was so careful because an infection behind the knee is very, very hard to treat because the blood flow doesn’t get there too well.
[/QUOTE]
She’s right. I have no idea if blood flow is the issue, but a friend got about three white cells away from needing an above-the-knee amputation. She had something done to her knee a while back (think it was an injection) and has been battling an infection ever since. She had at least one surgical treatment to remove infected tissue, and I think on the last go-around, they pretty much flushed her knee out with vancomycin for a day or two.
I’ve got a badly worn knee and got hyaluronan shots once a week for five weeks, with physical therapy. It made a huge difference, after some time. The shots themselves were not that unpleasant. It worked much better for me than cortisone shots. I’m going back for another round of hyaluronan as soon as six months is over.
Insurance was an issue. When I started the shots, the doctor supplied them and was paid directly by the insurance company. Half way through, my insurance plan changed how it paid for them. Now I have to order the injectable on my prescription insurance and have it shipped directly to the doctor. So I have a copay on the prescription insurance (which is the same if I get 3 or 5 doses) and then a copay at the doctor of $45 per shot. It’s worth it.
I’m giving you a warning for “Being a jerk”. Don’t post like this again. Posters asking for specific advice or experience with something on here is commonplace. If it doesn’t apply to you, you don’t need to reply.
I’ve done Synvisc a few times. Worked wonders for me - I went from barely being able to run 1/4 mile due to knee pain, to being able to do a 5k. It lasted four months or so, if I recall correctly.
I had read about the shots being painful, but didn’t experience that at all myself. They were mostly a non-event for me. My understanding is it depends on the skill of the doctor - mine was very good at it.
On the flip side, my mother tried Synvisc a few months ago, and had no improvement at all. She’s having partial knee replacement surgery next week.
I was supposed to get Synvisc, but my doctor switched it to Orthovisc because down was listed as one of my allergies. While the shots weren’t easy, they weren’t excruciating, and once it’s over it’s over, and the nurse really helped me through it, just like during all the cortisone shots, so it wasn’t “so horrible I wouldn’t do it again” type pain. I had some relief from the pain, but both my knees were bone-on-bone by this point, and the Orthovisc was just one more step that had to be tried before getting approval for a double knee replacement. The minor improvement I had didn’t even last for three months. In someone with less severe deterioration there should be more relief. Not disappointed that it didn’t work, because it NOT working got my replacements made a priority.