How long does it take for a steroid injection to work?

Steroid injections are injections of a synthetic version of your bodies natural regulating inflammatory hormone called cortisol. They are sometimes known as cortisone injections.

Used correctly, they help to reduce inflammation in common injuries of the musculoskeletal system  eg. Painful arthritis, swollen painful joints like frozen shoulders and tendon sheaths like De quervain’s tenosynovitis.

When you are in pain, you want relief as quickly as possible, so a common question asked during a consultation is “How long until I get relief?” Or “When will the steroid injection start to work?”

The answer to this question is variable and dependant on several factors.

As a guideline, most steroid injections can take up to 2 weeks to take effect.

This variation is due to a few reasons:

• Medicines are unpredictable as everyone responds differently depending on their body size, age, severity of pathology and medication dose.
• Putting in more steroid may increase the likelihood of a swifter response, but also increases the likelihood of adverse effects from the injection like a steroid flare (post-injection discomfort), or elevated blood sugars in diabetics and damage to the joint or tendon.
• Minimal dose approach. Due to the factors above, we will always give you the lowest effective dose to ensure we avoid complications and side effects from the medication. This may sometimes cause the effects to be modest, but it allows us to gauge the right dose for you should further intervention be required.

Costs of a private steroid injection at OC Injections: