quote:
Originally posted by John YaYa:
The shot is only going to reduce the pain, not fix the root cause of the pain.
That's not entirely true. Cortisone is a steroidal anti inflammatory not a pain reliever. It is very effective at reducing swelling and inflammation. You are right in that it won't cure the cause of the swelling and inflammation, but it does not mask pain. In fact, before they started mixing lidocane in with the cortisone, cortisone shots were very painful to many.
Tendonitis and bursitis in the shoulder can be instigated by sometimes very minute problems or situational movements. Once they take hold however, are troublesome and very time consuming to get to abate. Cortisone can and does help speed the healing process by reducing the inflammation more rapidly than nearly any other form of treatment.
Cortisone is used at the college level as a form of treatment. The reason that it is not good to use cortisone to be "
shooting up players for aches and pains everyday", is that it is a steriod. Common medical opinion states it as safe for injection up to three times annually. After that, the steriod can become systemic, saturating the body rather than staying mostly localized to the joint it is treating.
And I was a young HS player in 1976 when I had my first cortisone shot in my shoulder...two that year, and many since.