What Should I Do After a Facet Joint Injection?

It's common to experience mild pain at the injection site for 24 to 48 hours after a facet joint injection. To ensure the best results, it's important to avoid heat in the injection area for 72 hours. This is a great way to strengthen your back muscles and determine if the injection was given into the correct facet joint. If cortisone is also injected into the joint at the same time, you may experience pain relief for several weeks.During a facet joint injection, medications such as a local anesthetic and cortisone are typically used.

This type of injection is recommended by doctors to try and determine if the joints are causing back pain.

Facet joint injections can temporarily eliminate pain

by filling the joint with an anesthetic medication that numbs the joint, ligaments, and the joint capsule surrounding the facet joint. Pain from facet joints can be felt anywhere from the neck and shoulders to the hips and upper thighs, and sometimes in the legs.Once it's determined that it is the facet joint causing pain, other procedures may be recommended to reduce pain over a longer period of time. If movement of the facet back joint is limited, encouraging more movement may help relieve pain.

If the facet joint is injected and the pain goes away for several hours, this indicates to the doctor that it is very likely that the joint or its closely related tissues are causing the pain. Very small needles are placed inside the joint capsule and a small volume (usually about 1 ml) is placed in each joint.If you receive a successful injection into your facet joint, you should expect to experience pain relief for several months. Facet joint injections are minimally invasive treatments that can provide long-term relief from pain and help doctors identify its source. These injections involve injecting an anesthetic and a long-lasting anti-inflammatory steroid into the facet joint.

The joint capsule is made up of ligaments and connective tissues that help hold the joint together.Facet joint injections are one of the safest spinal injections because they usually don't come close to any spinal nerves. You're more likely to notice faster relief if the joints where the injection was given were the main source of your pain.