Had a facet injections in c-spine and now I'm having pain in my lower back thats not responding to pain medication? Why Help me understand

[fiona1026]

[Barnclown]

I'll do my best, hope you'll bear with me:

Having had a childhood accident falling on my head, and being globally hypermobile, I've had chronic spine related pain since the 1970s. My career began as a professional gardener. At first the spine pain seemed to be normal work related muscle pain (neck/shoulder gridle pain & to a much less degree pelvic girdle stiffness). By the '80s the cervical aspect got so bad it made me change to office work. By the '90s my legs & lower spine seemed possibly to be somewhat affected by some sort of neuro involvement, but drs found no obvious lumbar issues to explain these sensations, and i had little actual pain down there

In the late '90s, I managed to cancel the nhs double cervical discectomy my neurosurgeon had me booked for, by insisting on referral to a pain consultant because MRIs showed no nerve roots or spinal cord impingement.

My first cervical facet joint injection was as a pain consultant diagnostic tool to see if I'd respond well enough to proceed with bilateral facet joint denervations. At the time my drs & physio told me that if my neck responded well to all that, it was highly probable my lumbar/sacral spine in time could get so bad that I'd need similar procedures & treatment down there too. I found that vvv hard to believe, but it's exactly what happened. in the early 2000s I was having double lumbar & sacral facet joint diagnostic injections & denervations too. All these procedures helped me hugely, along with physio & lifestyle management. I had become very disabled. I did get quite a lot of life back.

As this was explained to me:

The spine in a continuous linked up thing, and as such it compensates by sparing the section with the most severe pain problem and loading extra pressure on the more healthy bit. As a result, the part of the spine doing the compensating takes on a heavy stress load, which predisposes the compensating part of the spine to future chronic pain probs. I was told that prompt action (treatment) could prevent my lower spine pain becoming as entrenched as my upper spine pain had. This theory proved correct.

BUT:

In my case, until 2.5 yrs ago, the NHS hadn't connected the lifelong multisystem disease aspects of my non-chronic-spine-pain dodgy health dots to realise I had infant onset systemic Lupus complicating my spine's chronic pain syndrome. Once I started systemic Rx treatment for lupus, on the NHS, any lingering shoulder & pelvic girdle pain gradually melted away. At 60, to my utter amazement, i now am much less disabled generally and feeling less pain, much better generally than I have since my teens.

Hope all that helps you make sense of what you're going through

Take care