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Facet Joint Injections - Anyone had success?

Spine Health | Last Active: May 7 1:35pm | Replies (135)

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@bluelagoon

Hi! I'm a member of the lung cancer and lung health groups who is close to my one year cancer survivor anniversary after successful surgery with follow-up chemo at Mayo. This week we scheduled for my fiance to have cervical facet joint injections to his C3-7 with a local interventional physiatrist. He'll have 3 shots to the left side in 10 days and 3 to the right 2 weeks after that. Since it looks like just about a year since comments specific to the cervical area were in the discussion above I thought I'd throw this "out there" in case anyone has any recent thoughts to share. For background, in September when he was mowing the lawn going uphill he felt like something snapped and gave him burning pain shooting out to the shoulders. He was sure that he tore something. With protocols designed for insurance, our doctor's NP started him on some meds, and moved him on to physical therapy when that didn't solve it. We were hopeful since we have both had great success with PT at a nearby facility, but not this time. So, finally an MRI and with nothing seriously out of whack our doctor referred him to the physiatrist. My question is whether anyone found success with anything else without going this route (Mayo site lists TENS as one of the therapies) ? His question is whether anyone would recommend it or not. The doc said that 90% of people have success with no further treatment, which surprised me since I've never heard results that good on lower back issues. I appreciate comments by @lyssia confirming that it's worth doing but my skepticism on permanence is justified. Any other thoughts are greatly appreciated!

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Replies to "Hi! I'm a member of the lung cancer and lung health groups who is close to..."

Hi @bluelagoon I am glad my comments gave you information you could use. I would say one thing, that even though the injections are not a permanent solution they have changed my life. I have 8-9 months without the pain, headaches, and sleep disturbance which for me is a game changer. I can enjoy my life doing the things I like to do for those months and when the pain comes back and gets too much I schedule another round of shots. So far this is working good for me and at some point I may have to try something different. Hope you have luck with getting your pain relieved. Lyssa