Steroid Shoulder Injections Don't Help

More and more people – especially baby boomers – are suffering from shoulder disorders, often summarized under a diagnosis of rotator cuff disease or osteoarthritis or bursitis. For years an injection of a steroid drug into the joint or bursa has been regarded as a useful treatment to address the associated pain and disability. But now doubt has been thrown on this form of therapy, in a publication in the British Medical Journal.

Norwegian orthopedic surgeons conducted a double-blind, randomized, clinical trial of corticosteroid plus lidocaine injection into the shoulder of patients with rotator cuff disease. Steroid-plus-lidocaine was given into the should together with lidocaine into the buttock in one group of patients, and lidocaine into the shoulder with steroid-plus-lidocaine into the buttocks in another group.

The differences in improvement in overall shoulder pain and disability between the two groups were scored after 6 weeks. There were no relevant differences in the these scores between the two types of treatment. It can be concluded that, for these patients at least, steroid injections into the shoulder had no beneficial effect on the symptomatology. (This corresponds to my own experience – a steroid injection didn't do a lick of good.) “Stick to physical therapy” is the researchers advice, and mine, too.