Cortizone injections for sesamoiditis in runners

Just today I got an interesting question from Victoria, who has been suffering with a bad case of sesamoiditis which has been keeping her from running.

She saw an orthopedic surgeon who who thinks there is scar tissue around the sesamoid bone restricting the range of motion and causing the pain under the big toe joint.

The doctor explained to her that one other conservative option, which might help her avoid sesamoid surgery would be a corticosteroid injection which is sometimes also called a Cortizone injection.

So her question was:

“How exactly do steroid injections help? Do they break up scar tissue?  The orthopedic surgeon told me to be cautious about doing steroid injections, but I never got a clear explanation as to why.”

Today on the Doc On The Run podcast, we're talking about the good and bad of cortizone injections for sesamoiditis in runners.