Cortisone injection

[Swan13]

Hi - I had to have a single cortisone injection in my shoulder yesterday which was completely frozen. The GP knows I have diabetes type 2. I have read that such shots can cause a rise in blood sugar. This has slightly annoyed me as I've been working really hard to reduce my BS through life style changes and have lost 2 stone in 3 months and dye my next H1abc test in two weeks. I've read some horror stories on the web re how such shots can increase blood sugar and for the first time in two months my urgine strip showed an abnormal reading (2.8) last night. Does anyone know how long cortisone shots can cause BS to be elevated for and how long it takes for BS to go back to normal ?

 

[CarbsRok]

Hi - I had to have a single cortisone injection in my shoulder yesterday which was completely frozen. The GP knows I have diabetes type 2. I have read that such shots can cause a rise in blood sugar. This has slightly annoyed me as I've been working really hard to reduce my BS through life style changes and have lost 2 stone in 3 months and dye my next H1abc test in two weeks. I've read some horror stories on the web re how such shots can increase blood sugar and for the first time in two months my urgine strip showed an abnormal reading (2.8) last night. Does anyone know how long cortisone shots can cause BS to be elevated for and how long it takes for BS to go back to normal ?

Roughly 10 days before back to normal.
The choice to have the injection was up to you though, so hardly fair to blame the GP.
Looking at it from another angle raised blood sugars for 10 days or constant agony? Hope things improve for you soon.

 

[Swan13]

Thanks - I was really trying to find out if it was likely to have any negative impact on my forthcoming H1abc test - or as only up to 10 days and H1abc measures over 3 months impact would be minimal.

 

[ButtterflyLady]

Roughly 10 days before back to normal.
The choice to have the injection was up to you though, so hardly fair to blame the GP.
Looking at it from another angle raised blood sugars for 10 days or constant agony? Hope things improve for you soon.

To be fair, the GP has a duty to provide enough info to enable informed consent, which would include telling the patient what the likely side effects were. Often getting this sort of info doesn't affect our decision, but is useful for us to have. Often the GP assumes it's not important, but they don't realise that it's important to us.

 

[CarbsRok]

Thanks - I was really trying to find out if it was likely to have any negative impact on my forthcoming H1abc test - or as only up to 10 days and H1abc measures over 3 months impact would be minimal.

I suspect it will have some impact, is there any reason not to delay the A1c test?

 

[lovinglife]

I had one a couple of months ago, I was given a leaflet before hand, I was lucky that I had higher than normal bs for the rest of the day I stayed in the 7 - 8s but by next day I was back in my usual high 4s low 5s. You may be lucky like me but if not don't worry - sometimes diabetes has to take a back seat and the pain and stress from the shoulder may have been pushing your bs a little anyway

 

[Swan13]

Thanks - that's really encouraging. My reading has been averaging at 5.9 to 6.2 fasting (was 9 when diagnosed 3 months ago) but this morning was up to 8.1 - hopefully it's just a 24hr thing

 

[Devonbear]

Bear in mind that the HbA1C test measures the gradual accumulation of glucose on the haemoglobin in your blood over a period of about 2 months. So having 10 days of higher glucose levels will show up to some extent, but it won't overwhelm the lower levels of the other 50 days. So you will probably have a less good reading than you would have had without the jab, but it should still be a vast improvement (if you've been losing weight and low carbing throughout). And of course, cortisone plus bad eating is worse than cortisone without bad eating.

 

[Daibell]

Hi. Hopefully the coritisone injection effect will be shortlived on blood sugar. Note, and I hate to say this, but if you have genuine frozen shoulder (adhesive encapsulitis) and not fibromyalgia then steroid injections are unlikely to have any effect. There is a lot of confusion amongst GPs in this area according to my wife's consultant. Sadly there really isn't any treatment for genuine frozen shoulder other than pain relief and time. Amitriptyline was precribed by my wife's consulatant and worked well

 

[Swan13]

Thanks Dainbell - yes you are right so don't worry about saying the above . Unfortunately I have a history of calcific tendinitus and have had key hole surgery on one shoulder for it back in 2000 and ultrasound aspiration on the other should back in October last year. Was not diagnosed as diabetic at the time of either. But because I couldn't move my shoulder at all and was in great pain Cortisone jab was given , which at least has given me movement back. I'm just s bit "frustrated" as have been working really hard over last two months to try and get my BS down through life style changes and jab has caused them to shoot up. But hope it's only temporary and won't affect my Hba1c test in two weeks time too much