“Can I Have Another Shot for My Trigger Finger, Doc?”
Good answers to a very common questions
What’s the Claim?
Common office questions: Is it OK to have a second (or a third) injection for trigger finger, and if it is, will that second shot help?
A prospective, observational study with 100% follow-up at one year (that bit is important) found that among patients who had repeated corticosteroid injections:
- 49% were categorized as having had a successful treatment (defined as pain reduction of 50% or more on the VAS or VAS pain of ≤ 3, no additional injections, and no surgery)
- Poorer results were seen among those with high-grade triggering (Quinnell III or IV), BMI ≥ 25, and a symptom-free interval of < 6 months after the previous injection
- The absence of risk factors increased the likelihood of success to 73% at 1 year, but it dropped to 12% in patients with all three of those risk factors
- No complications of these injections were observed
The authors defined “repeated injections” as two or more, but 90% had only two and not more than that.
