Lumbar Facet Joint Injection (Medial Branch Block)
What is lumbar facet joint pain?
The lumbar vertebra (lower back bones) connects with each other at three points. A pair of facet joints - one on each side in the back of your spine, and the sponge like intervertebral disc in the centre. These facet joints are present at each level starting from the neck to the lower back. Changes in the facet joint such as strain of the capsule (covering of the joint) or age related wear and tear changes are a very common cause of your low backache and spinal pain. Certain inflammatory conditions like Rheumatoid arthritis and Ankylosing spondylitis are also known to afflict the facet joints.
What treatments are available for facet joint pain?
At Atlas Pain Care, Coimbatore, facet joint disease (Spondylosis) is diagnosed clinically (by physically examining you) and on occasions with help of MRI scans. An initial course of painkillers and physiotherapy might be useful in treating the pain in a small group of patients. If it is a longstanding problem, painkillers or physiotherapy alone will not be useful. Injections like facet joint medial branch blocks and facet joint radiofrequency denervations are then done to reduce your pain.
What is a diagnostic facet joint medial branch block?
Facet joint disease is a clinical diagnosis. To confirm the diagnosis, medial branch blocks are done. Each facet joint is supplied by two tiny twigs of nerves, one at the same level of the joint and one above the level of the joint, called the medial branches. These nerves are responsible for carrying the painful impulses from the facet joint to the spinal cord and to the brain. We block these nerves under X-ray guidance, with a few drops of local anaesthetic, to find if you get meaningful pain relief.
Three types of responses are possible after this injection. You can have a short-term pain relief (few days to a couple of weeks), long-term pain relief (few months) or no pain relief. If there is no pain relief, no further injections would be useful, and the pain management involves pain rehabilitation with our pain management program – Pearl Box.
If you have short or long term pain relief, an injection called radio frequency ablation could be done to achieve long-term solutions for your back pain. This could be repeated if and when the pain recurs. Even when there is good relief it is useful to utilise our pain management program to derive the maximum benefit from the injections.
What are the side effects of this procedure?
In our expert hands at Atlas Pain Care, this is an extremely safe procedure with no long-term side effects. The injection causes some discomfort in your back for a few days that could be taken care by applying ice and with some simple painkiller tablets. Please read our FAQ section to know more about the do's and don'ts prior to and after the procedure.