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Old 01-02-2019, 01:56 PM
leipan71 leipan71 is offline
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Join Date: Nov 2018
Posts: 38
Default facet joint injection

Hi, I had my facet joint injection done on Dec 12, 2018 mostly as a diagnostic tool. I did not feel any improvement for the first 24 hrs and the later one week. However, i notice that I can stand and walk longer time now which is 2 weeks later. Yesterday, I even went to mall with my daughter walking around on and off for almost 2 and half hours. In the past, I could only walk about 45 mins top without too much pain. Of course, after the mall trip, I came home laying flat on my heating pad to reduce the pain which is very much expected.

When the doctor examined me asking me doing forward, backward and left, right bending, I did not have any extra pain. My pain is always related to walking and standing and some times sitting for too long. That is why doctor Guyer does not think my pain source is the facet joint but the degenerated discs. But he still wants me to do the injection to rule out. When I did not notice improvement right after the injection, I assumed that the pain is not facet joint related. Now, I am not so sure. Another reason is that I also went to NCY to see a surgeon for a second opinion. His name is Russel Huang. After he saw my MRI and X-ray, he concluded that he would not do anything for me since he thinks that my MRI does not look bad to the point that a surgery is needed. Maybe because of the reason that I had a discseel procedure early this year, I am having good disc height and mild bulging on the image.

I wonder whether anyone of you have the similar injection and how soon usually it shall start to work if you do have the facet problem. My discogram is scheduled 3 weeks later and I am going to see Dr. Guyer in two weeks. I am still debating whether I want to have the surgery at this point of my life.

Dr. Bertagnoli also gave me the estimate and diagnosis about two weeks ago. His diagnosis is very similar to Dr. Guyer's, a definite L5-Si ADR and a possible L4-L5 depending on the result of discogram. Dr. B will use prodisc. I will find out what Dr. Guyer would suggest when i meet with him in two weeks.
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started to have back pain at age of 18
DDD at L5-S1 at age of 23 in 1993
bulding discs and disc tear at L4-L5 and L5-S1 in 2017
DiscSeel procedure at L3-S1 in Feb 2018 (no help)
considering ADR at L4-L5 and L5-S1
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