Or not even a single…I’m not sure yet.
I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this, but in September I bumped the inside of my knee on either the trailer or van during our Swiss Alps tour. It immediately blew up and I ended up taking indecent amounts of Ibuprofen to bring the swelling down and allowing me to ride those incredible roads they have up there.
Fast forward two months, a few ups and downs, and I’m not too much farther along in my recovery. Without getting into the weeds too much, I have that small injury (a tiny hole in the tendon), plus the old knee injury that may be Osteoarthritis, or could be a ‘bruise’ on the bone or something. I’m now on a regime of painkillers that I can already see will do little or nothing, but I’ve also got a prescription for a shot of cortisone (in France you buy the drugs at the pharmacy and the doctor injects it) as our Plan B.
Interlude: above is WordPress’s AI photo generator at work. I do hope not to have so many needles in my knee, but it’s a slightly scary and kind of impressive image.
Given that this is a cycling blog, I’m sure that some of you have had experience with cortisone shots. Any good news for me?
The Vicious Cycle 
Gerry:
I can empathize with this exact issue. I have had numerous injuries, and like you my right knee has a mild amount of osteoarthritis that causes some irritation.
Cortisone for me has always been a short term fix and did nothing to alleviate the underlying cnodition.
I recently had a round of Platelet Rich Plasma injections into several areas (shoulder, achilles tendon, knee), and have had good results in alleviating the low level pain and also improving function. It’s been about 120 days so far without any negative side effects so for me at least it has been quite durable.
I’m fortunate that my health insurance covers, normally it is not a covered procedure in the USA.
Apparently it’s available in France https://www.impc.fr/en/prp-injection/, not sure what it costs but I imagine for joint injuries it would be a normal medical procedure.
That’s good intel, thanks. I have some friends who’ve had good results with PRP injections, although I don’t think I know anyone in France. That clinic is in Paris looks interesting. Sounds like you can just knock on the door and get an injection!
It’s good to know that I’ve got options. My goal is to get this solved in the off season, before I need to start keeping up with clients.
I have had steroid injections in various joints with varying success. It has to be put into exactly the right spot.
Thanks. That ‘right spot’ might be tricky because the pain seems to be everywhere!