Hi Ginger! I wish you very good luck. Yes, it can take up to two months to figure how successful the ablation is. And yes, it can get worse in the first two weeks as the Area treated may be swollen and healing. I have done a Malaysia for 25 years and I’ve had a variety of successes over the years some permanent and some I have to go back for a couple times and some not successful at all because it wasn’t the root problem, the pain diary is to let the doctor know if he was in the right area. They’re supposed to do a diagnostic injection before they do the real thing to figure that out. They bring you in they inject you with a numbing agent and then they see if your pain was relieved. If your pain was relieved, then they know they were in the right area and they can go back to that area and do the ablation . If they didn’t do a diagnostic on you, then the pain diary will tell them still if they were in the correct area. Because normally what they do is inject you with a numbing agent in order to do the ablation. So if you get pain relief for the first couple days , they will still know they were in the correct area. If it wears off within the first couple days, they will know that they didn’t dead in the nerves. They just found the area. I wished they told people why they were doing these diaries, I used to think they were very idiotic , but please keep them for yourself they are really helpful over the years. Ablation worked for me until I needed lumbar surgery, which took about 20 years. Later, it did not work at all for me, which is also diagnostic because it lets me know where my pain is not originating from. It can be a slow go, but it can be a wonderful wonderful thing. Good luck.