I go to the back doctor on Tuesday to discuss how my new back meds are working and what are the next steps which are sure to involve more needles. A few years ago I would never have asked for a needle. I still can't look at them. But I am becoming an avid fan of needles full of cortisone for my back pain. They have proved very helpful.
But of course, just as I am starting to appreciate them, there is a new study which doubts their efficacy. (Damn these medical studies.) I think (as my little chemo brain dissects the article) that the problem is people come in with tennis elbow and other injury/overuse type issues and get a cortisone shot. Yes they get instant relief but then they also are prone to reinjury. This is opposed to waiting and taking it easy for 6 to 12 months. Well this makes sense.
If you are forced to change the way you do things to let something heal, you are reducing the risk of reinjury because it gets time to heal and you are changing your habits. If you just get a shot and it feels better, and you are not forced to modify your habits and take it easy, it would seem logical that you would repeat whatever you did and reinjure yourself.
But with my back I think its different (they could not be talking about me in that article) because my back is just piling on the pain and we are trying to ease the pain in specific areas so I can do things like sit, stand, walk, or lie down or reach for things or roll over in bed or cook dinner or bend down to feed the cat etc.
Needless to say, I will go talk to my doctor about more needles that I don't have to look at because he puts them in my back where I can't see.
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