The following is not meant to be medical advice, but rather a warning to be sure you investigate for yourself and make a decision based on your research and your medical professionals.
Classified as a corticosterone, Kenalog injections are a steroid injected into muscle or joints for the purpose of reducing inflamation and aiding the healing process. Unfortunately it also has many side effects and people who have medicinal or food allergies should not take this steroid.
Your doctor should know the effects and contraindications for people who might have an infection, thyroid problem, food or chemical allergies, but the bottom line is, Doctors really do not and cannot keep up with so many new drugs and so many different complications with each one. What your doctor knows is, the Pharmaceutical company salesman gives him a box of new pills, and being a salesman says, this is something new, it is great, the studies have been phenominal and with fewer side effects, so your doctor, being one who was trained in the human body believes what he is told by the Pharmaceutical industry, which is trained in drug chemistry, and this gets passed on to you, many times in cases where it should not happen. This is what happened to us, we learned the hard way.
My wife, Carmella, has serious food and drug allergies. She has a gluten and meat free diet, she can only eat fish, fruits, and vegetables. She also has serious drug reactions and most drugs do not do to her what they are supposed to do. When she received her Kenalog injection, she was assured that it was safe, and even I believed this and assured my wife knowing that steroids are a natural function of the body anyway, and we were even assured that this had been given to others with serious allergies and they had no problem.
By the time we got home from the doctors office, she had a serious headache that centered behind her eyes, her joints were all experiencing sudden severe pain, she was sick to her stomach and experienced mental fogginess. This is when we went online and started searching for side effects. If you Google Kenalog Injection side effects, you will find loads of potential problems with this steroid, and those with known allergies are already at a higher risk of developing these problems.
I guess what I’m saying here, very much like vaccine injections, before you get a kenalog injection for a sore joint, ask for the package insert, take it home and research it, then decide if you need that shot or not. Search the internet for side effects as well because many times new side effects are discovered after the insert was printed. You may decide that the potential for serious damage is not worth the iffy relief in your joint. I had a steroid injection in my knee because of my arthritis, and while my knee felt great for two days, it really did nothing to relieve the pain or to cure the arthritis.
One last side note on the Kenalog Injection is the potential for death of the thigh bone next to the hip, and eventual total collapse of the femur. We were not told this nor was it on the waiver, what our diagnosis sheet says we were told was a slight risk of steroid flare along with Avascular Necrosis. I did not see this on the waiver my wife signed, if I did I had no clue what it meant at the time, nor did the doctor verbally tell us of this issue in any way that we could understand it. Had he told us that the thigh bone could die from lack of circulation and eventually collapse, we would not have even taken that risk.
So, this along with any other modern medical treatment, remember it is your body, not the doctors, and the doctor isn’t going to tell you the risks in terms you can understand, he will make them appear to be less than they are, assuring you with confidence that it is safe and the thing you need. The reality is, my wifes shoulder is NOT going to heal because of this shot, in fact based on internet reports it is just a temporary relief, but she has suffered for more than 24 hours now, and is at risk of being seriously injured by this shot including but not limited to an acceleration of osteoporosis. How do you spell relief? However you spell it, do not spell it K-E-N-A-L-O-G,.
Please, find out what your doctor is telling you before saying yes, and find out what he doesn’t know about the drug before accepting it.
