This is what I think, from my personal experience with blocks. I had a good bunch of LSBs and SGBs once upon a time, but it was the TECs that really worked for me.

1. This depends on a lot of things. It sounds like a lot of the pain you're having is muscle pain. The nerve block might not help that part so much. In my experience, the nerve blocks relieved the nerve pain (burning, electrical shocks, etc) and the vascular pain (heaviness, some of the achiness). In my case, the muscle pain was a result of more long-term effects of RSD, which had to be worked on for months after the actual RSD pain was relieved. But at first I had a hard time, thinking that the blocks would take away ALL the pain.

I guess for me, total relief was more of a process than an imediate thing. I'm not sure if it's like that for other people! When I had my TEC for my arm (2 month long block), it took a good six months to a year of therapy before it was totally better.

I don't know about your second question. Sorry! I hope your medicine helps for the muscle stuff.

3. What kind of sensitivity to touch? Do you have RSD in that area? I guess I really don't know again, but I hope that it's just a temporary thing!

Also, blocks are done in series because a lot of the time, each one works for longer than the last. I hope it works like that for you! I've heard of people getting muscle spasms from the actual block (never happened to me, the worst I had was a bad migraine after a stellate ganglion block). I do remember my back being sore for a few days after lumbar sympathetic blocks.

Good luck, and I really hope it lasts!