Are you tired of living with back or neck pain that disrupts your work, your sleep, and your daily life? You don’t have to keep accepting pain as a permanent part of your routine. At Long Island Spine Rehabilitation Medicine, our trained physiatrists have the experience and diagnostic tools to identify the true source of your pain and address it directly, without surgery. If facet injections are the right fit for you, we’ll tell you so. If they’re not, we’ll figure out what is. Call us today at 1-888-SPINE-1-1 to arrange a same-day spine appointment at one of our Long Island offices.
Facet Joints and Facet Joint Pain
Your spine is more than just a column of bones. Pairs of small joints called facet joints connect each vertebra in your spine to the ones above and below it. These joints provide stability and allow for everyday movements like bending and turning.
Spinal movement should be smooth and pain-free with healthy facet joints. However, if these joints break down due to osteoarthritis, injury, or general wear and tear, they can become a significant source of chronic pain.
Facet joint pain commonly presents as stiffness and soreness in the neck or back, and it can radiate into the shoulders, arms, buttocks, or legs. At Long Island Spine Rehabilitation Medicine, we have extensive experience diagnosing and treating a range of facet joint conditions.
What Is a Facet Injection and How Does It Work?
One way to treat facet joint pain is with facet injections and/or nerve blocks. A facet injection is a minimally invasive, in-office procedure that delivers medication directly into or around an inflamed facet joint. Physicians may inject a local anesthetic or sometimes a combination of a corticosteroid and a local anesthetic to confirm the diagnosis and treat pain.
Facet injections can serve a dual purpose. In addition to providing therapeutic relief, they can also help your doctor confirm whether a specific facet joint is the true source of your pain. This can provide greater precision and confidence for further treatment decisions including a patient’s candidacy for a radiofrequency ablation procedure (RFA).
Conditions That May Benefit from Facet Injections
Not all back and neck pain originates from the same source, and facet injections aren’t right for everyone. However, for those whose pain originates in the facet joints, this treatment can deliver significant, targeted relief. Conditions that often respond well to facet injection therapy include:
- Facet joint syndrome
- Spinal osteoarthritis
- Degenerative disc disease with facet joint involvement
- Whiplash-related facet joint injuries
- Lumbar, cervical, or thoracic facet joint pain
- Post-traumatic spinal pain
- Spinal stenosis with facet joint inflammation
- Spondylosis
- Spondylolisthesis
How We Diagnose Facet Joint Pain
Before our physicians recommend facet injection therapy, we take the time to identify the precise origin of your pain. That process begins with a careful physical examination and medical history, sometimes supplemented by imaging studies.
If our clinical findings point to the facet joints, we may use a diagnostic medial branch block or even a facet injection itself as a diagnostic tool. Because facet injections contain a local anesthetic, a significant reduction in your pain after the procedure can help us confirm that the targeted joint is the true source of your discomfort.
If you’re wondering whether the facet injection process is painful, you can rest assured that our physicians apply a local anesthetic to the treatment area before the injection. Most patients tolerate the procedure quite well and report only mild discomfort.
What Happens During a Facet Injection?
On the day of your facet injection treatment at Long Island Spine Rehabilitation Medicine, you can expect a straightforward, in-office procedure that our physicians perform with fluoroscopic guidance. Fluoroscopy is a real-time X-ray technology that allows our doctors to visualize the target joint continuously and position the needle with exceptional accuracy.
First, we clean the injection site and apply a local anesthetic to keep you comfortable. Then, with the fluoroscope providing a live image, a physician advances a thin needle to the facet joint and delivers the medication. The entire procedure typically takes only a few minutes. Most patients return to their normal activities shortly afterward, though we may recommend a brief period of rest on the day of treatment.
Why Patients Choose Long Island Spine Rehabilitation Medicine for Facet Injection Procedures
The physiatrists at Long Island Spine Rehabilitation Medicine have more than 25 years of experience providing nonsurgical treatment for a wide range of spinal and musculoskeletal conditions. Because our doctors don’t perform surgery, their focus is always on helping you find the most effective, least invasive path to relief.
Our fellowship-trained physicians use fluoroscopic guidance to deliver facet injections with precision, and we take the time to confirm that facet joint pain is truly the source of your discomfort before recommending any treatment. Our doctors are among the most respected physiatrists in the New York metropolitan area and have been recognized by Castle Connolly Top Doctors, Newsday, and New York Super Doctors.
We treat every patient as a whole person, and we won’t rest until we find an approach that works for you. We also have five offices across Long Island, so the compassionate, expert care you need is always within reach.
What to Expect After Your Injection
Most patients leave their facet injection appointments feeling relatively comfortable, though some notice mild tenderness at the injection site for a short time. The anesthetic portion of the injection can offer fairly quick relief, but it wears off within hours. The corticosteroid then takes over, after which most patients notice a reduction in facet joint pain within a few days to two weeks. For many patients, relief lasts several weeks to months.
Our physicians at Long Island Spine Rehabilitation Medicine will stay in close contact with you to assess your progress after your treatment. Your response to the injection may also give our team valuable clinical information that can help us refine your overall treatment plan.
Take the First Step Toward Relief Today
If facet joint pain has been holding you back, Long Island Spine Rehabilitation Medicine is here to help. Call 1-888-SPINE-1-1 today to get started with your same-day spine appointment.