If joint pain has been affecting your ability to live and enjoy your life to the fullest, it may be time to consider viscosupplementation injections. At Phoenix Regenerative Medicine in Tempe, AZ, this is one of our many treatment options we offer to improve our patients’ lives.
How Fast Do Viscosupplementation Injections Work?
Relief Should Arrive After a Few Weeks
Since viscosupplementation injections work together with your body, it may be a week or two until your results really begin to make themselves known. How quickly it works can depend on some individual factors that can be hard to predict. For some patients, results set in even faster than the usual few weeks.
That said, once a few weeks have passed you should know whether or not this treatment is working for you. If it does provide the relief you’ve been looking for, we can discuss a treatment schedule with you that will help maintain those positive benefits. Oftentimes a single or series of injections every six months will help keep your results going strong.
Benefits of This Treatment
It Is Minimally-Invasive
This treatment doesn’t require any surgery, so if you’re hoping to delay or completely avoid surgery, viscosupplementation injections may be a good option for you. These injections contain hyaluronic acid in a gel base. The gel helps lubricate your joints, while the hyaluronic acid gets to work improving joint elasticity, flexibility, and hydration.
It’s Quick
While surgery is sometimes necessary, patients who find this treatment helpful are thankful they didn’t have to set aside the significant recovery period surgery requires. This treatment is a simple series of injections, spaced apart as needed.
Unlike surgery which may require weeks of recovery time, this injection won’t even take up a whole day of your time. All you’ll need to do is set aside enough time to get to our office, sit through the treatment, and get back home.
It Can Slow Disease Progression
Not only can this treatment help improve the functionality of your joints, but it can help slow the progression of joint deterioration. That means it serves as a treatment as well as a preventative measure against more severe disease development.
Improve Daily Comfort
When our joints are healthy, we often take for granted the little things in life. Crouching down to get something from the bottom shelf, walking up the stairs, or even getting up after sitting for a while can all become painful activities when you have arthritis.
This treatment can help you reclaim those lost moments so you can work, clean the house, and play with your kids or grandkids with more ease and comfort. This can allow many patients to rediscover a sense of spontaneity that they weren’t able to enjoy before.
Promote Healthy Activity Levels
If you’ve been unable to exercise as much due to joint pain, relief from your symptoms can help you move with a lot more comfort. This has a lot of benefits. Exercise is crucial for a healthy body, which includes your heart and lungs. It can be mentally liberating for patients to resume activities they used to enjoy, like hiking.
Additionally, more exercise can help promote a healthy weight. In a vicious cycle, diseased joints can lead to inactivity, which can lead to weight gain. Weight gain tends to make joint pain even worse. Since carrying excess weight can put additional strain on your joints, being able to exercise comfortably and possibly shed some extra weight can benefit your joints and overall health all at once.
Get a Better Night’s Sleep
The symptoms of arthritis can worsen at night. This can make it difficult to be comfortable even at rest. Many patients with severe joint pain will find that it’s difficult to fall asleep, and may find their sleep to be fitful and easily disrupted. This can cause patients to be exhausted during the day, or even more achy.
Better mobility and comfort can mean a better night’s sleep and more energy during the day.
FAQ About Viscosupplementation Injections
1. What Happens During the Treatment?
The injection is delivered to the affected joints, so it can get to work right at the heart of the problem. It’s minimally invasive, as all it involves is an injection and no surgery is needed. Since it’s not surgery, you will also be able to head home after the treatment is complete.
A series of initial treatments may help boost the treatment’s effectiveness. Once we have a good foundation for your new comfort levels, we can then move onto maintenance injections to keep the joint functioning at its best for as long as possible.
2. Who Is a Good Candidate?
Patients with osteoarthritis tend to find this treatment especially helpful in managing their symptoms, but anyone with joint pain can consider this treatment option.
During a consultation, you can let us know your needs and your goals, and we’ll be able to give you a better idea of whether this treatment has the best possible chance of helping improve your symptoms, and how many treatments you may need.
3. How Can I Tell if I Have Knee Osteoarthritis?
Stiffness
Other than an official diagnosis, there are some symptoms you may notice on your own that could indicate osteoarthritis. One of them is stiffness. You may notice this after you’ve been immobile for a while. Getting up in the morning, or even moving after you’ve watched a movie may be more difficult than it used to be.
Visual Changes
Swelling is another common symptom, but you may also notice bumps around the affected joint. Since osteoarthritis involves the formation of bone spurs, you may be seeing evidence of that around your knees.
Grating or Crackling Sensation
When you walk up the stairs, do you hear a crackling noise? If you hold your hand to your knee while it’s being used, can you feel a grating sensation? These symptoms, along with popping, may indicate arthritis.
The Best Diagnosis Is an Official One
If you have some of the symptoms of osteoarthritis, it’s important not to ignore them or assume what the issue is before you get an official diagnosis. This condition can be easily diagnosed with an X-ray or MRI. The X-ray can check for bone spurs or changes to the bone of your knee. A change in shape can indicate that the knee has lost cartilage.
An MRI is another diagnostic tool that will give a more detailed look at the cartilage of your knees. Finally, analyzing the fluid in your joints or even a blood test can be used as diagnostic tools. Once you have an official diagnosis, it’ll be easier to determine the right treatment moving forward.
4. What Causes Osteoarthritis?
A lot of things can contribute to osteoarthritis. Age, sex, prior injury, and weight can all play a role in your risk level. Certain diseases can increase the risk of osteoarthritis, and even hormone levels or genetic traits may make you more prone to developing it.
Protecting your health can help delay or prevent it, but in the end it is a very common condition that many people will have to deal with at some point in their lives.
It Starts With the Cartilage
When the cartilage in your joints weaken, osteoarthritis can set in. The bones in your joints should be protected by a cushion of cartilage. This cushion also contains your body’s very own hyaluronic acid, which is why viscosupplementation injections are a helpful way to replace hyaluronic acid levels that have been affected by disease.
When your cartilage is healthy, it will keep your bones moving in smooth, easy motions. As these caps of cartilage degrade, the joints may begin to grate against each other. This grating is what can lead to inflammation and other painful symptoms.
5. How Should I Prepare for My Appointment?
You won’t have to do anything too special before your appointment, and during a consultation we’ll be able to let you know exactly what to expect. In general, letting us know about your health history or any health concerns you have will be helpful for us.
Wearing loose, comfortable pants is also a good idea as it will allow us easy access to your knee.
6. What Else Can Help My Symptoms?
Our office offers regenerative medicine injections, PRP therapy, and other treatments with the goal of improving your comfort and delaying or avoiding your need for surgery. We’d be happy to explore your options together with you, so you can make the best decision for your needs.
Reach Out Today for a Consultation
If you’re interested in this, or one of the many other treatments we offer to improve joint health and functionality, we’d be happy to discuss them further with you in person. Reach out to Phoenix Regenerative Medicine in Tempe, AZ, today and set up your consultation.
