Advice on hip joint steroid injection blocker

Bones, joints and muscles
1

Hi All,

I am a 34 year old and will very likely need a total hip replacement soon. However to confirm that my current pain is coming from within the hip joint, I'm due to have a steroid injection into the hip joint as a diagnosis exercise (i.e. if the pain goes, they know it's the hip causing bother and THR can go ahead).

The pain I experience is upon 5 minutes + of full weight bearing/walking and is in the upper thigh/groin.

However I had a couple of questions before I have the hip injection if anyone can help...

1. Has anyone else had a steroid injection into the hip. Did it help? My pain is very much at the top of the thigh/groin so I'm hoping it will be good at treating pain in this area?

2. If the injection doesn’t take my pain away then can we be 100% sure that the weight bearing pain I experience is coming from outside the joint? (If so then this would be puzzling as a recent MRI doesn't show many or any issues outside of the hip joint).

I’m very worried as I am a long term sufferer of chronic pain in the wrist and ankle so I’m desperately worried that this could be chronic pain in the hip also, which would be a disaster as I can’t walk more than 5 minutes (let’s hope the injection works so they can get on with a hip replacement!).

Thanks so much for all your help and advice,

All the very best to everyone,

​Liam

2

I had the steroid injections. The first one worked well and I had no pain for 3 months. You are only allowed 4 per year here in the U.S. they 2nd also worked well but the 3rd and 4th did not last as long only about a month. My next and final step was replacement.

3

Hi Liam

I had a steroid injection and it made no difference, I had a THR two months later. My consultant was not surprised that the injection did not work!

Wishing you luck

Jean

4

Hi Jean,

Thanks so much for your reply.

Any ideas why the injection didn't work? What were your symptoms when you had it done?

Also how have you been since the THR?

Thanks a million,

Liam

5

Hi Susan - thanks very much for your reply - good luck with everything!

Liam

6

I had the Injection last Juily , they inject into The hipbone and it worked fine for me pain free for 4 weeks , I had to keep a diary and was booked back in to see the consultant last September . The reason I had the injection was to confirm pain was from the hip not the back. 13 weeks post Thr and its great !

7

Hi Alison - thanks for your reply.

My injection is being done as a diagnosis exercise also.

Can I ask how you were before the injection? Were you able to walk far without crutches?

I'm hoping the injection will work so they can confirm it's a hip joint issue and progress me towards THR.

Thanks again

8

Yes walking without crutches but not far without pain. In a lot of pain after sitting . felt absolutely normal after injection . But only lasted for 4 weeks ! We went away at the end of August last years and did a lot of walking , this brought the symptoms back!

9

Thanks Alison - and how long did it take for your injection to take all the pain away for four weeks? I've literally just had my injection but am in quite a lot of pain immediately following it. Hoping it will start to work over the coming days though! Liam