First, I would ask for a steroid shoulder injection now in an effort to settle down the pain and local inflammation while you are sorting out your problems. The steroid injection is a much more localized anti-inflammatory treatment. Do realize that even an injection will spread outside of the immediate area.

Shoulder replacement is serious surgery and takes time to recover, not to mention that any surgery is going to elevate your inflammatory markers temporarily. Surgery is invasive at a minimum. The quicker you get your inflammation down the better you will be.

I too have osteopenia and have had more injections than I care to admit over the last 5 years. Once I got the inflammation down I moved to different pain management treatments. For my greater trochanter bursitis, I get wet needling. For my OA in my knees I get hyaluronic acid (gel) injections. And for my shoulder OA I was getting steroid injections but am looking into private pay hyaluronic acid injections to avoid steroids and shoulder replacement. Right now I have full range of motion in my shoulder and until the range is significantly limited I do not plan to have the surgery. I have already had rotator cuff surgery on both shoulders. Long, tuff recoveries.

I cannot take any non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs either Rx NSAIDs or over the counter. I have learned to tolerate temporary pain and save steroids for the must have situations. My approach says there is a difference between getting the inflammation down and keeping the inflammation down.

Do you know you C Reactive Protein (CRP) number also? Your Sed Rate is often considered to be the trailing inflammatory marker. My Rheumy uses both, my Infectious Disease doctor really only uses CRP. CRP does seem to drop faster than Sed Rate based on my observations.