Does an orthopaedic surgeon perform hyaluronic acid injections?

Hyaluronic acid injection, sometimes called viscosupplementation, places a gel-like medicine into a joint, often the knee. The clinician reviews your symptoms, examination findings, imaging when needed, allergies, skin condition, and medicines before treatment. The injection is usually given in an outpatient setting. It is one option among exercise therapy, activity changes, pain management, and other treatments, and it does not repair every cause of joint pain.

Tell the clinic if you take blood-thinning medicine, have diabetes, have reacted to an injection before, or have a skin infection near the joint. Wear clothing that allows access to the area and follow the clinician's advice about activity afterward. Keep expectations realistic: relief and its timing vary, so arrange follow-up if pain or function does not improve.

Contact a clinician promptly for increasing redness, warmth, swelling, drainage, or fever after an injection. Seek emergency care for severe pain with rapidly worsening swelling, fainting, breathing difficulty, or signs of a serious allergic reaction such as swelling of the face or throat.

Ask which joint problem the injection is intended to address, what benefit is realistic, whether imaging or another treatment is needed first, how to care for the injection site, and when you can resume your usual activities.