Brief Medical History Overview
effectiveness of cortisone injection - nerve root
Hi there,
I'm interested if anyone can send me some literature on the effectiveness of cortisone injections into the nerve root. I have a compressed ulnar nerve which has improved a lot but my physio thinks that the other shoulder problems (muscle spasms, weakness in right shoulder) could be due to some dysfunction in C5. He thinks that if there is some inflammation around the c5 nerve root that cortisone could be very beneficial. I am not keen about this idea because 1) an injection around the nerve root does not sound very safe (even though it would be guided by an MRI) and 2) I've already had a cortisone injection before into the biceps tendon and I understand that there is a limit with the number of cortisone injections you can have. I am also concerned about potential damage cortisone injections can have on the body such as kidney and liver failure.
Current treatment is dry needling into c5 along with soft tissue work. I'm currently seeing the physio on a weekly basis and have seen a great deal of improvement. So I guess I'm not sure if there is a point in getting the cortisone injection if the dry needling is settling things down.
Help greatly appreciated.
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