Facet Joint Injections

Arthritis Joint Injections

Facet joint injections are helpful when lower or upper back pain is due to arthritis, injury or possibly mechanical stress. Essential Clinic in Los Angeles offer arthritis pain and back pain treatment with facet joint injections performed in our Pain Center in downtown Los Angeles.
Because of the body’s nerve structure lumbar (lower) facet joints can cause chronic pain in your lower back, hip, leg or buttocks. Facet joint injections are rarely given for the cervical spine and is never performed on the thoracic spine.

Facet joint injections have (2) primary goals: to diagnose the cause and location of the pain as well as to provide pain relief – short term or long term. The diagnostic injections are performed by anesthetizing the facet joints where the pain is originating or suspected. By performing this diagnostic injection the physician will confirm or deny the joint as the source of the pain. This type of injection is done by fluoroscopy to confirm the placement of the medicines.

The pain relief goal for the injections occur after confirmation that the suspected facet joint(s) are indeed the source of the pain. A therapeutic injection may be given such as a slow acting steroid which can give temporary relief for pain and reduce inflammation of the joint. This type of injection is done by fluoroscopy to confirm the placement of the medicines.

A secondary type of pain relief injection after confirmation from the diagnostic injections is a longer term solution than the therapeutic injections which involve ablating the nerve endings associated with the facet and source of the pain. This can be done by injection (chemical neurolysis) or by using a radio frequency device to destroy the nerve endings associated with the facet joint pain. The pain relief can take up to (2) weeks to take effect and in some cases may not be effective. The effectiveness of the block is difficult to predict but works in about 87% of the cases with pain relief lasting up to (18) months.