Foot Injections

Even if you’re not on your feet all day, your feet still get a workout from your normal daily activities. Pain and inflammation in your feet not only slow you down but also impact your attitude. Instead of suffering through weeks of foot pain, see your sports injury specialist for a cortisone injection in the foot.

Cortisone is a corticosteroid medication. It’s derived from the most common hormone that your adrenal gland releases in times of stress. It actually contains a healing mix of anti-inflammatory and pain-relieving medicine. Your sports doctor often injects a cortisone shot into a painful joint to ease the pain, reduce the swelling and promote healing.

Getting the shot is a simple procedure done right in our pain management office. Depending on the reason for your steroid injection in the foot, your physician may put all of the medication in one insertion point or in several, to surround and coat the problem area with the medicine. The whole procedure takes less than 15 minutes.

Effects from a Cortisone Injection for Foot Pain

The injection ingredients include saline, steroids for inflammation and a local anesthetic for immediate pain relief. So the injection eases your pain right away. But after the anesthetic dissipates, within about three hours, the pain often returns.

The steroid anti-inflammatory drugs often don’t start working for a couple of days after your injection. At that point, you’ll experience what pain relief from a steroid injection in the foot feels like. And relief lasts for several months.

You may notice some minor side effects from the injection. Most often, these are temporary. Side effects include:

• An increase in your blood sugar levels, especially if you’re diabetic
• A flush of warmth in your face or chest
• A spike in the inflammation and pain in your foot for up to two days, before the corticosteroid medicine starts working

Recovering from a Steroid Injection in the Foot

While you should feel pain relief immediately after the injection due to the anesthetic, you have to be watchful for a few days before the steroid medication starts working. The normal precautions of most medical treatments apply for a cortisone injection in the foot:

• Keep the injection site clean
• Look out for infection symptoms: increased pain and swelling or a fever
• Avoid stressing your problem foot; don’t go from your doctor’s office to a long hike across town
• Stay off your foot, if possible
• Apply a cold pack, but not heat, to the insertion point if it’s sore or swollen
• Don’t soak your foot in water, which includes in your tub or in a Jacuzzi

You may feel a little more pain in the days that follow your injection, but the pain should disappear by the third day, as the steroids start working. If the pain is drastically worse or you come down with a fever, contact your doctor right away.

Risks of a Cortisone Injection in the Foot

Risks are low when your shot is administered by a trained physician. But the risks include:

• Infection at the insertion point or in your foot
• Skin lightening at the insertion point
• Osteoporosis
• Weakened tendons
• Nerve damage, which is very rare
• Cartilage damage

To prevent cartilage damage, your NYC pain and sports doctor limits the number of injections you can have to about three or four per year, spaced at least six weeks apart. Because of this limit, a cortisone injection in the foot is not a long-term strategy for chronic pain. It’s a technique for easing pain temporarily, while your body heals.

Febin Melepura, MD is a top rated, best in class interventional pain management doctor. He is a nationally recognized pain relief specialist and is among the top pain care doctors in New York City and the country. He is an award winning expert and contributor to a prominent media outlets.

Dr. Febin Melepura has been recognized for his thoughtful, thorough, modern approach to treating chronic pain and, among other accolades, has been named a “top pain management doctor in New York”, and one of “America’s Top Doctors™” for an advanced sports injury treatments.