What is cortisone?
The Wonder drug…
The doctor injected cortisone into my heel to reduce the swelling in my plantar Fasciitis. This begs the question, “What is Cortisone?”
I’m glad you asked.
Cortisone is a hormone. It is one of the main hormones produced by your adrenal gland. In normal human operations cortisone is released by the adrenal gland in response to stress.
We inject it into injured areas because it reduces inflammation. It does this by suppressing the immune response that is swelling and pain.
There are a bunch of hormones like this that were discovered and isolated chemically in the 1940’s. Merck began commercially producing them in 1949.
In a general application your body naturally produces cortisone as part of the fight or flight response, one would assume it’s preparing you to get smacked in the head or something.
In my case the Doctor injected the cortisone directly into the injury, the tear in the tendon, in my heel. This doesn’t heal anything per se, but it immediately reduces the swelling, that allows the injury to heal and not build up scar tissue.
There are plenty of side effects cited for abusing cortisone or any of these types of hormones. I have seen a noted decrease in swelling since the injection and hopefully this will do the trick without the need for any more.