After receiving a facet joint injection, you can resume all your normal daily activities 24 hours later. It's important to keep track of how you're feeling for the rest of the day and to move and do your usual activities, as long as they are not too strenuous. You may experience some local tenderness for a couple of days after the injection, which can be alleviated by using an ice pack three or four times a day. It's also important to not take pain medication on the day of the procedure so that you can see precisely how much of the pain is relieved by the injection alone.
You may notice that the pain may go away or decrease significantly soon after the injection, due to the effect of the local anesthetic, but this will only last a few hours. The pain may return and you may feel some pain at the injection site for about a day. You should start to notice pain relief about 1 to 2 days after the procedure, and if successful, you should expect to experience pain relief for several months. Although pain relief with facet joint injection usually occurs within 3 to 5 days, some patients experience improvement before or after this time period.
A lumbar facet joint block is an injection of local anesthetic (numbing medication) into one or more of the small joints located along each vertebra, on both sides of the spine, in the lower back. Very small needles are placed inside the joint capsule and a small volume (usually about 1 ml) is placed in each joint. It's OK to resume your exercise or physical therapy program as soon as you feel comfortable doing so. Back pain may improve immediately after injection as a result of local anesthesia. We recommend that you keep track of the amount of pain relief you receive, as well as the duration of pain relief.
We'll provide you with a phone number so you can call us the next day to let us know your progress.