Facet Joint Injections - Anyone had success?

Good Morning,
I am glad you had some relief.
Can you please tell us what 'rhizotomy' is?
Have a nice day!
Ronnie (GRANDMAr)

I had facet joint injections in my lower back about 2 months ago. There were 4 needles on each side of my spine....suspect it was L3-S1. There was no conveyance from the doctor about the amount of steroids being used, thus, your comment about starting out with a smaller amount is not clear to me. The shots did help but not as much as I had hoped. I'm going back soon for either more facet joint types of injections or possibly something else if she decides that I should try. I can not imagine in doing this the rest of my life but the neurosurgeon said to keep trying for at least the next 3 months.......then he will review surgery options. I have some success in relieving my pain with a pill called Gabapenta..........intially I was on 600mg a day and there was no improvement. Now I am on 1200mg and it has helped. There are many people who take as much as 2400mg daily and this is not an opioid. Asl your doctor.

@jforsy5903 Hi I'm glad to hear they help I too have had lots of facet injections over the years. The cortisone is only to be taking 3-4 times a year as it affects your kidneys So I look for other pain meds I,ll ask the Dr about the higher dose of gabapentin as the lower dose didn't help at all . Right now I'm going for a MRI as I did something to my back ,pain excrutiating . Thanks for the reply about the med.

Wishing you the best of luck.........please check with your pain management doctor who did your last facet joint injection for I believe they are now using a steroid in lieu of cortisone .........and maybe you can go more than quarterly if necessary...................please ice your back to help with the pain!!

@jforsy5903 I am icing my back just had a MRI on table for 45min. on my back could hardly walk when I got of. Hope to hear from Dr. by Fri. .You take care of your back also

I am scheduled to have cervical spine facet joint injections in mid-January.

This is my first attempt at any invasive procedure to help my neck pain, other than dry needling during PT and acupuncture.

I’m a bit apprehensive about starting this.

I wonder if anyone else has had these injections and did they help, not help, or make your neck pain worse? Would love to hear that many of you with neck pain have been helped.

I have arthritis, bones spurs and various other DDD (degenerative disc disorder) problems going on all along my spine but have been able to help myself improve with continuing PT exercises and core strengthening for the lower back.

I had an injection on the eft side of my neck guided by imaging in a doctor's office in January 2021. It was a painful injection but it did help. The pain pretty much disappeared for a long time. I do get a headache on the left side of the head above the ear once in a while. I have stenosis in the cervical spine. Be careful doing neck exercises, you can aggravate the situation. I have pain in my lower back. I've had injections in the facet joints, both sides on two occasions. The second time they did not help. So, I tried RFA (radio frequency ablation) I think that made the pain a little worse. I'm going to try an epidural injection guided by imaging, next Monday for the lower back and the right foot.pain.

Thanks for responding. I am looking at this coming procedure in a positive way as that is important, I have to believe it will help, and if it doesn’t, I move on and deal with it.

I would love to be able to say after it’s over that it helped the pain go away for a long time!

The doctor doing this procedure has done 1000’s of them and performs them in an outpatient setting at the hospital. I’m in good hands! Thank you…

Hello …. I’m interested in knowing if anyone with cervical stenosis/myelopathy has ever had minimally invasive surgery where the space around the spinal cord is opened up (osteophytes removed) in order for the cord to not be impacted!! If so, where did you have the surgery performed? Thanks

@amberrose I don't know if minimally invasive surgery is possible for decompression of the spinal cord. They have to be able to remove ostheophytes after removing the disc that is bad in order to gain access to the spinal canal. If it isn't a bad disc causing stenosis, they may be expanding the space inside the spinal canal by cutting and moving part of the vertebrae outward. Those discs are about an inch in diameter. With minimally invasive surgery, I believe the surgeon inserts a tiny tube to push the instruments through and it would limit access to being able to see the entire area internally. They have to make sure not to touch or move the spinal cord during surgery so as not to damage it.

I had this surgery at Mayo which was not minimally invasive for a bad C5/C6 disc with osteophytes and spinal cord compression. It wasn't that bad of a recovery. Most post surgical pain is in the first 2-3 weeks, and by 6 weeks, the incision is healed and I was feeling pretty good. At 3 months, the fusion process had started and I was able to forget I had spine surgery. I was in rehab because my neck muscles were weak after 3 months in a hard collar. I chose to do that because I could avoid having hardware on my spine entirely by staying in a collar until it fused. I had only a donor bone spacer. Often with hardware, surgeons may place a plate on the front of the spine to stabilize it. They probably cannot do that with minimally invasive procedures because they have to be able to screw it in place to connect 2 or more vertebrae in front. Only a surgeon can really answer that question.

I had an excellent surgeon and great results which is what brought me to Mayo Clinic as a patient. The skills of the surgeon are very important in the outcome of the procedure, so chose the very best you can. My surgeon was Jeremy Fogelson at Mayo in Rochester. I would recommend him if you are looking for a highly skilled compassionate doctor with extensive knowledge of spinal deformity. He does both fusion and artificial disc surgeries which is good to know if you are trying to decide between those procedures. Some surgeons only do fusions, etc.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/biographies/fogelson-jeremy-l-m-d/bio-20055624
Are you considering care at Mayo Clinic? You may use this link to contact any of the Mayo Clinic campuses to request an appointment. http://mayocl.in/1mtmR63

What recommendations have you had so far from your surgical consults?