Cortisone
The Evils of Cortisone
Cortisone Damages Joints and Tendons: Corticosteroids - "cortisone" - have previously been shown to destroy cartilage, accelerate arthritis, cause avascular necrosis, and predispose to stress fracture. We therefore never inject it into joints. It also is toxic to tendons, so we do not inject it into rotator cuffs, tennis elbows or the like. Below is the abstract from a November 2021 study from the number one orthopaedic journal describing rapid destruction of the hip in 5% of patients who receive cortisone injections. Cortisone is also toxic to other joints as well. There are at least half a million hip cortisone injections done in the USA every year. This would mean that 25,000 hips annually may be being destroyed by cortisone, for which the only treatment is hip replacement. Below is such a patient I recently saw who prior to the injection had only minimal arthritis.
Case Report: We recently saw a patient who had destruction of her hip. She had x-rays on October 19th showing a nearly normal hip. She had a cortisone injection on November 17th elsewhere followed by intense pain. I injected her hip with PRP on December 10th and an x-ray was taken that day showed complete obliteration of her hip joint - 23 days after a single cortisone injection. Below are X-rays before and after her cortisone injection.
See This Published Paper for Additional Information:
