Getting a cortisone shot has been one of the most popular ways to provide pain relief for knee pain or joint pain, especially for older patients. Even if it’s just for temporary relief, this joint injection treatment has proven itself to be a crucial aid in helping to manage a variety of joint pain. However, it’s not the only injection process used for a long-term benefit when it comes to pain management and helping take care of health conditions: platelet-rich plasma treatments, or PRP injections, have also seen a lot of use.
So for people thinking of using these injections together: how long should you wait before getting PRP injections after cortisone treatments? Most experts generally agree that because the effects of these two injections together haven’t been studied closely, a grace period of 3 weeks to 1 month (so that the cortisone shot has time to disappear from your system) is the best possible timeframe. Otherwise, a patient can choose between one or the other for their specific needs.
What Are Cortisone Injections?
Cortisone injections are treatments that are designed to help with pain relief and relieve inflammation in your body. These are commonly used for quick pain relief or long-term pain relief (depending on the condition) for joint pains and aches. Some conditions that they can help manage include:
- Arthritic knee pain
- Chronic knee pain
- Joint damage
- Tendon damage
- Strains or sprains on musculoskeletal tissues
- Mild osteoarthritis
- Hip arthritis
Aside from helping with the alleviation of symptoms, cortisone injections over time can also provide more effective pain relief compared to other pain-relief medications, or even other types of cortisone medication. Since the cortisone is injected straight into the treated area, the medication can provide complete relief quicker compared to oral or topical medications.
But despite its effective role in reducing pain, patients should always be careful with getting additional cortisone shots. High amounts of cortisone can cause cellular damage, which can weaken the bone and joints, as well as cause other serious adverse effects. This concern with cortisone shots is the primary reason why most providers tend to be very conservative with applying it to patients, especially if they need it for long-term use.
What Are PRP Injections?
PRP (platelet-rich plasma) injections are treatments that are designed to use the body’s own platelets in a concentrated solution to improve wound healing and increase the growth factors in the body. Platelet-rich plasma injections can be used to treat a variety of conditions, both medical and cosmetic:
- Hair loss
- Tendinitis
- Joint or muscle pain
- Healing damage to soft tissues
- Improving recovery after a surgical procedure
- Advanced osteoarthritis
- General improvement of the skin
While the primary purpose of platelets in the body is to help the blood clot during injuries, high levels of platelets can also help improve the immune response, aid in cellular regrowth, and overall improve the health of your body. Normally, these platelets are only activated when your body experiences a severe injury. But by extracting them from your blood and reinjecting them as a pure PRP solution, you’re able to trigger these effects without having to meet those conditions.
One crucial thing to keep in mind is that while PRP treatments can function as a general all-around help for improving your body, it’s important to find a provider that has the experience and the equipment needed to create the right PRP serums. Since PRP works better with a higher concentration of platelets, you’re going to need a provider who has the skill to extract it from your blood and the equipment to get a pure concentrate.
Why Wait Between Treatments?
So far, there’s really nothing that seems to indicate that PRP treatments actively get in the way of cortisone injections – but it’s this ambiguity that makes experts extremely wary of administering PRP treatments after cortisone injections. Even if there isn’t a lot of evidence to support that PRP treatments can have any effects on cortisone injections, there’s not a lot of evidence to support its use either – at least for now.
So why wait 3 weeks to 1 month? Given that cortisone injections are extremely potent, even single injections of the formula will stay a while in the body before being processed and extracted. And given that most patients get 1 to 2 injections of cortisone to manage chronic pain, the compound remains in your system for longer than you might think.
The body’s natural detox process usually takes about 7 days or more, but this varies greatly depending on the actual compound and the efficiency of the person’s natural detox processes. While there are some things that they can do to speed up this process, most experts would generally recommend waiting for around a few weeks to one month to make sure that the body’s completely clear of the compound.
Given that PRP treatments also change the body as drastically as cortisone treatments, it’s crucial for providers to give time between these injections to make sure that no unintended adverse effects occur.
Get Affordable And Quality Medical Supplies From FACE Med Store Today
Steroid injections are extremely potent aids in physical therapy, but it’s because of their potent effects that providers hesitate to use any product after their treatment. If you’ve had cortisone injections or corticosteroid injections recently, your provider will likely advise you to wait 3 weeks to 1 month before getting platelet-rich plasma treatments. While there’s not a lot of evidence that a cortisone shot can have drastic side effects with PRP injections, most experts generally agree that there’s no point in risking it.
As an experienced provider of medical and cosmetic supplies, FACE Med Store has all the necessary tools and equipment you need to perform almost any cosmetic or medical procedure. Whether it’s hyaluronic acid injections or a direct way to introduce anti-inflammatory medications to your body, we have everything you need at affordable prices without compromising on quality. No matter the types of injections or any additional resources you might require, our stocks can help get the procedure done.
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