Most Chronic Joint Pain Isn't a Mystery. It's a Sequence of Avoidable Errors. After years of treating chronic joint pain, the patterns repeat so reliably we could set a watch by them. Here are the three mistakes that keep people hurting — in order of how often we see them. Mistake #1: Getting Cortisone Shots on Repeat The most common and most damaging. The first shot helps for a couple of months. The second helps for six weeks. By the fourth, relief barely lasts — and researc