Ellena,

It DOES sound like you have a great doc. He sounds alot like my own.

It is common to have an increase in pain; in particular if the facets were already inflamed and mine usually are. Your doc is right; if you had relief right away from the numbing med then yep, the right spot. Same thing holds true for the increased pain. It SHOULD subside with time...give it about two weeks maybe a bit longer. It takes about that long for the steroid to kick in.

Anyway, the facet injections are the ones I usually dread the most simply because they hurt the most. My PM always kind of laughs because he says MOST patients don't mind the facet injections and hate the selective nerve root injections and those are the ones that don't bother me at all and I told him as much. So, that's when he said the reason the facet injections hurt is again, because by the time I need one or two, they are already badly inflamed.

But the good thing is the last facet injections I had were MONTHS ago at the C2/C3 and they are still working. So, hang in there and give it a few more days. Oh, and there were times I called my PM's office telling them they didn't work. But they said to give it more time and I'll be darned; they were right.

And last but not least, try a cold pack or ice pack but only for about 20 minutes each time. I hope the injections kick in because when they do, it is blessed relief.