Joint pain treatment (joint injections) at Spire Little Aston Hospital

At Spire Little Aston Hospital, we provide comprehensive treatment and care from our comfortable private hospital in Sutton Coldfield, near Birmingham city centre. We offer a choice of expert rheumatologists, orthopaedic consultants and anaesthetists who perform joint injections and are committed to healthcare excellence.

You can expect to receive treatment without the wait and high-quality aftercare that’s personalised to you. Our facilities are clean and modern with all the comfort and convenience you’d expect at home.

Finding us

You can find us just to the north of Sutton Coldfield. We're a short 25 minute drive from Birmingham city centre. Birmingham New Street is the nearest mainline station to Spire Little Aston Hospital. We have free parking on-site for you and your visitors.

What to expect during your consultation

On the day of your consultation, you’ll meet one of our healthcare professionals in one of our accessible consultation rooms so there’s no need to be concerned if your joint pain restricts your mobility.

At your consultation, we may:

• Ask about your medical history
• Check your blood pressure and blood sugar to make sure the hydrocortisone injection is suitable for you
• Explain about the procedure, anaesthetic and any potential risks and complications and how they may affect you
• Give you a chance to ask any questions you have about your treatment

We may also recommend further tests and scans, such as an X-ray, an MRI or a CT scan, so we can examine your joint in more detail.

Joint injections can help reduce knee pain, shoulder pain and hip pain, and particularly pain due to osteoarthritis.

When you come in to Spire Little Aston Hospital for your joint injection, you’ll:

• Meet your healthcare team
• Be given a sedative to help you relax (if agreed upon with your consultant beforehand)
• Have your joint felt and flexed, and possibly have excess fluid removed with a needle if necessary
• Have a thin needle injected into your joint containing the steroid and sometimes an anaesthetic to numb the area

Sometimes, your consultant will use an X-ray machine positioned over your joint to guide the injection. They may also perform more than one joint injection, if necessary.

In some cases, our consultants use special platelet-rich plasma injections. The plasma is taken from your own blood, and when injected into your joint, it promotes cartilage repair and relieves pain and stiffness due to osteoarthritis.

Ultrasound guided injections at Spire Little Aston Hospital

An ultrasound-guided steroid injection uses ultrasound imaging to guide an injection of medication (usually local anaesthetic and a steroid) into a specific area of the body. These injections usually take a week or so to take effect and can ease symptoms for up to a few months – however pain may increase 24-48 hours after the examination.  

The examination is undertaken by a Consultant Radiologist. There are no special preparations before the procedure but you will be advised not to drive afterwards. 

You may be required to change into a hospital gown for the procedure. The Radiologist will use the ultrasound probe and gel to find where to target the injection. The Radiologist may decide the injection is not necessary. In this case, you’ll be referred back to your doctor. 

The skin at the site of the injection will be cleaned using a cold antiseptic solution. The area for injection will then be numbed using local anaesthetic. Once numbed, a fine needle will be put into the area to be treated and the local anaesthetic and/or steroid will be injected. You may feel some pushing as the needle goes in and it will feel heavy/tight as the medication is injected. The procedure usually takes around 20-30 minutes.

After your procedure, you’ll go to a recovery room for half an hour before going home. Your healthcare team will provide you with any advice and information on how to manage any pain due to the injection.

The first few days

Following your joint procedure, you’ll need someone to then stay with you for the first 24 hours. It can take up to 48 hours for the steroid to take effect, so you should rest your joint for the first few days. Your consultant will inform you about over-the-counter painkillers to relieve any existing pain or discomfort. After the 48-hour period you should keep your joint active and do the exercises provided by our physiotherapists.

Ultrasound guided injections

An ultrasound guided injection is considered a relatively safe procedure with minimal risk. Using ultrasound to guide the needle reduces the chances of causing damage to surrounding structures. Side effects related to the procedure include bleeding, infection, numbness/weakness and allergic reaction to the medications used. Please note if you’re diabetic this may increase your blood glucose levels. 

We advise reducing activity for the first two weeks after the injection, and then gradually increasing activity. Steroid injections should not be performed within two weeks before or after a vaccine (including COVID); please contact us so we can rearrange your appointment. 

Please inform us if you‘re taking any blood thinning medicine such as warfarin, aspirin or clopidogrel this will increase your risk of bleeding.

Although everybody’s different and you should always follow your consultant’s advice, here’s a typical recovery timeline for joint injections: