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Published: April 19, 2024

All You Need to Know About Synvisc One: Pros and Cons of the Treatment

One of the most effective injectable medications used to treat knee osteoarthritis these days is Synvisc One. With its help, a patient is expected to feel pain relief and, therefore, return mobility to his or her life. But what are the main pros and cons of the Synvisc One treatment? Figure it out by going through this article!

A Safety Note

Synvisc injections belong to hyaluronic acid injections used to treat knee pain in patients with knee osteoarthritis. They are products intended exclusively for professional use. Thus, only certified healthcare providers with valid medical licenses are eligible to use them in practice.

General Information About Synvisc One

Synvisc One is a minimally invasive injectable product that is intended to reduce knee joint pain in patients living with osteoarthritis. These days, it is considered to be one of the most effective medications that helps a patient to return to his or her normal lifestyle in a quick and safe way.

Contemporary medicine offers a wide range of methods to address mild to severe pain caused by osteoarthritis of the knee. They include physical therapy, intake of pain killers, cortisone injections, and even knee replacement. Each of these methods has its own peculiarities.

Composition

While belonging to hyaluronic acid injections, Synvisc One has a composition primarily based on hyaluronan (or, in other words, Hylan G-F 20). It is a natural substance found in chicken combs. Hyaluronan plays an important role in human joints, where it does a great job in the process of fluid build-up.

It is also important to mention that a Synvisc injection does not contain prefilled lidocaine hydrochloride in its composition. However, it is possible to feel almost no pain during the procedure by applying a topical anesthetic to the treatment area shortly before injecting the product.

One of the main questions for patients who are about to undergo hyaluronic acid injections for the relief of osteoarthritis-related knee pain sounds as follows: “Will these injections hurt?” There is no definite answer to this question since everybody has his or her own individual pain threshold. In most cases, however, patients do not feel any constant pain and claim the treatment to be fully bearable.

Indications

Synvisc One injections are indicated for patients who experience knee pain caused by osteoarthritis. More precisely, they are recommended if patients have already undergone other non-invasive methods of addressing the problem (for instance, a special exercise complex or a simple analgesic) but have not achieved any substantial or long-lasting relief of discomfort.

Apart from Synvisc One, there exist several minimally invasive intraarticular treatments that aim to reduce pain in either the left knee or the right knee of a patient living with osteoarthritis. They are Durolane, Euflexxa, Hyalgan, Monovisc, Orthovisc, and so on. It is the task of a healthcare provider specializing in treating arthritis and osteoarthritis to define which one is going to be more effective in each individual case.

Contraindications

Even though orthopedic surgeon specialists claim an injection of Synvisc One to be one of the safest methods to fight painful feelings caused by osteoarthritis of the knee, they are contraindicated to patients under any of the following circumstances:

  • If a patient has an allergic reaction to hyaluronic acid (or any other component of Synvisc One);
  • If a patient experiences an ongoing skin irritation or infection around the injection site;
  • If a patient lives with a serious chronic disease;
  • And so on.

Ignorance of the contraindications mentioned above might lead to a number of unwanted complications. For this reason, it is of the utmost importance to take them into account before having the pain in the knees treated by an injection of Synvisc One.

Man suffering from knee pain

Possible Side Effects

Under normal circumstances, patients do not notice any serious adverse reactions after an injection of Synvisc One. At the same time, however, some of them might have their knee swelled, warmed, or irritated for the first several days after the treatment. Many patients also wonder if Synvisc causes weight gain, but weight gain is not typically associated with this treatment.

Luckily, these most common side effects have a temporary character. They tend to fade away on their own in about a week after a single injection of Synvisc One and do not usually require any medical supervision. Still, it all depends on the individual peculiarities of each patient.

To minimize the risk of any side effects after an injection of Synvisc One, a patient is recommended to avoid strenuous activities (or, in other words, prolonged weight-bearing activities) for the first several weeks after the procedure.

Expected Results

One injection of Synvisc One tends to provide a patient with almost immediate relief of osteoarthritis-related knee pain for a period that equals six months. This time frame, however, strongly depends on the individual peculiarities of each patient’s body, starting from its age and ending with its health condition.

Even though one shot of a Synvisc One injection is usually enough to achieve the desired results, a healthcare provider might recommend a patient undergo several injections. The main reason for this is that some patients might require a greater dose of hyaluronic acid to get his or her knees fully treated by the product.

The majority of patients notice substantial improvements in the reduction of painful feelings around his or her knee cap almost immediately after Synvisc One treatments. Still, some patients might require a little bit more time to achieve the expected results (sometimes, it might take them up to one week).

Pros and Cons of Synvisc One

After delving into the general information about Synvisc One, it is high time to go through the main pros and cons of the product. Check them out by scrolling through the text below!

The below-mentioned list of pros and cons of Synvisc One is rather general. Each healthcare provider (just as each patient), however, might find his or her own advantages and disadvantages of the product after having it injected into the joints.

Pros

If compared to the majority of other treatments of a similar kind, Synvisc One might be characterized by the following advantages:

  • Usually, just one injection of the product is enough to improve mobility and range of motion in affected joints (which is probably the main difference between Synvisc One if compared to similar injectable solutions to treat osteoarthritis-related pain);
  • It is a minimally invasive and non-surgical method of providing an osteoarthritic patient with substantial knee joint pain relief;
  • It has a highly-qualitative composition that rarely causes any adverse reactions, side effects, or complications.

Cons

Despite the above-mentioned advantages of Synvisc One, its following disadvantages are worth paying attention to:

  • It does not create permanent results, which is why a patient would have to repeat the injections from time to time to maintain the achieved results;
  • The Synvisc cost might be pretty pricey (especially if a patient has health insurance that does not cover it);
  • Effectiveness of the product might vary from one patient to another. Thus, it is difficult to predict how effective it is going to be in each particular case.

Injections of Synvisc One are strongly beloved by healthcare providers and their patients worldwide. Despite their temporary results, high price stages, and variable effectiveness, it is a highly qualitative, minimally invasive, and strongly useful method to address pain in joints associated with osteoarthritis.

A Bottom Line

All in all, injections of Synvisc One definitely deserve attention if you are currently looking for a safe, effective, and durable method of getting rid of knee pain that occurred due to osteoarthritis. Contact your healthcare provider and give it a try yourself!

Post Scriptum

If you would like to buy Synvisc One or any other brand-name injection to treat osteoarthritis-related pain, check out the assortment of OGOMED. Here, you will find a broad selection of original products offered at affordable prices.