A large proportion of the patients with joint pain have been managing it quietly for months, sometimes years, before they finally book an appointment. They have tried painkillers, rest, maybe a bit of physiotherapy, and assumed that was the limit of what could be done short of surgery.
More often than not, that assumption is wrong.
Joint pain is one of those problems people quietly put up with far longer than they should, mostly because they assume the only options are painkillers or surgery. Neither is true. A well placed joint injection, done properly, can be the thing that gets someone back to walking the dog, working a full day, or simply sleeping through the night without their shoulder waking them up.
Joint Injections at Health & Aesthetics
What we are actually treating
In my clinic, joint injections cover a lot more ground than people expect. It is not just knees. The following can also be treated:
- Shoulder pain and stiffness that has crept up over months
- Knee osteoarthritis and flare ups after long walks or a bad twist
- Tennis elbow and golfer’s elbow, which never seem to respect the name they were given
- Trigger finger, which patients often describe before they even know what it is called
- Carpal tunnel syndrome
- Thumb base arthritis, extremely common and hugely underdiagnosed
- Trochanteric bursitis, that nagging hip pain that ruins side sleeping
- De Quervain’s tenosynovitis, the wrist pain that flares with lifting
Each of these has a slightly different injection technique, a different landmark, a different depth. That is the part patients rarely think about but it is the part that actually matters.
An opinion
The aesthetics sector has done a disservice by letting joint injections drift into the hands of practitioners who are not medically trained. It happens more than people realise. Someone does a weekend course and starts offering injections for knee pain or trigger finger, and the patient has no real way of knowing whether the person treating them understands the anatomy, let alone what to do if something goes wrong.
Dr Andrew Welch, who carries out all joint injections at our clinic, trained in hospital medicine before moving into this area of practice. That background is not decorative. When you are injecting close to a nerve, or trying to work out whether someone’s shoulder pain is actually coming from their neck, years of clinical training make the difference between a good outcome and a missed diagnosis. At our clinic, every joint injection is carried out by a doctor. Not delegated. Not a quick add on to someone’s treatment list.
I would say the same thing to a friend that I say to our patients: ask who is doing your injection and what their medical background actually is. You are entitled to know.
The appointment
Patients often arrive expecting to be jabbed and sent on their way. That is not how a proper consultation works, or at least it should not be.
Dr Welch starts by examining the joint properly and talking through the history. When did it start? What makes it worse? Have you tried anything already? Sometimes an injection is exactly the right answer. Sometimes it is not, and he would rather tell someone that honestly than take their money for a treatment that will not help them. One patient was convinced her knee needed an injection, when actually the pain was referred from her hip. It saved her an unnecessary jab and pointed her in the right direction instead.
Dr Welch uses precise anatomical landmarking built on years of hands-on clinical experience, rather than leaning entirely on equipment to find the spot. The injection itself usually takes a few minutes. No anaesthesia required. Most people are a little surprised at how quick it is compared to what they had imagined.
Recovery, and what to actually expect
This is the bit people underestimate. Most patients go back to normal activity the same day. Some mild soreness at the injection site for 24 to 48 hours is completely normal and nothing to worry about. Many notice improvement within a few days, with the full effect usually settling in within about two weeks.
Results vary, as they do with any medical treatment, and they depend on things like the underlying condition, how long it has been going on, and general health. Some conditions need a repeat injection after three to six months if symptoms come back, but plenty of patients only need one course.
A word on who cannot have treatment
Joint injections are not suitable for everyone, and I would rather say that plainly than gloss over it. We take care with anyone who has an active infection near the injection site, a known allergy to the medication, uncontrolled diabetes, or who is on blood thinning medication. Pregnancy and breastfeeding are assessed case by case. This is exactly why the consultation matters so much. It is not a box ticking exercise, it genuinely changes what we recommend.
If your joint pain has been going on for weeks and painkillers are just papering over it, it is worth getting it looked at properly rather than waiting for it to become unbearable. People who delayed for six months out of a sense that it was not “bad enough” yet, only to end up in more pain and more disruption to daily life than an early injection would ever have caused.
If you would like an honest assessment of whether a joint injection is right for you, get in touch and we will arrange a proper consultation with Dr Andrew Welch.
