First, as far as technique goes, make sure you are getting ultrasound guided injections. Landmark injections without guidance are generally 70-80% accurate. Why get something that will miss 25% of the time when you can get near 100% accuracy.

These injections are very safe. Biggest downside is they don’t always work. I’d say about 60% of patients report decent improvement (at least 30-50% better). In other words, they aren’t some miracle cure.

They don’t work as well when you have more severe arthritis. You will have a lot of people who say these injections didn’t work and they ended up getting their knee replaced. A lot of the time the problem is they didn’t get the injections until they had more severe arthritis. They just don’t work as well at that point.

Consider PRP injections. Plenty of studies head to head with PRP injections providing greater benefit and longer benefit. Also very safe.

Happy to answer any questions. This is a huge part of my practice.