Facet Joint Syndrome: Symptoms and Treatment

Facet joint syndrome is a frustrating condition where you experience pain coming from your spine’s facet joints (also known as zygapophyseal). It is a common condition, and its prevalence increases as you grow older. It remains one of the leading causes of disability and has an enormous economic impact. Most cases with lower back pain stem from facet joint syndrome. It is an articular disorder that affects the face of joints and their innovations, resulting in both radiating and local pain. The condition occurs in the lumbar and cervical vertebrae. If you experience neck pain resulting from cervical facet joint syndrome, it is referred to as cervical facet syndrome. In contrast, low back pain involving the lumbar facet joint is known as the lumbar facet syndrome. If you have any form of the condition, you should visit a medical professional experienced in diagnosing and treating facet joint syndrome in Shrewsbury.

Symptoms

If you have facet joint syndrome, you will experience local unilateral back pain, spreading to the limbs when it becomes more severe. You can only determine the source of the pain through clinical examinations. Usually, you will experience one thing if it affects the joint capsule compared to the articular cartilage or synovium. All lumbar facet joints can generate pain that can refer to the growing, which is common among patients with lower facet joint pathology. Other common symptoms of the condition include:

  • Neck pain that spreads past the shoulders and upper back
  • Reduced range of motion
  • Stiffness or tenderness alongside the spine in the lower back
  • Stiffness or difficulty standing or rising from a chair
  • Pain during hyperextension
  • Pain that radiates into the thigh and hip

Treatment and Management

As the line first of treatment, your doctor will most likely recommend therapy. They may advise you to take anti-inflammatory medications and muscle relaxers. You may also need to take part in physical therapy and massage therapy alongside each other. When the conservative treatment methods fail, your doctor may recommend interventional procedures that reduce pain, minimize side effects from medications, and enhance functionality.

In this case, your doctor may use medial branch blocks to temporarily destroy the medial branch of the sensory nerves to reduce pain. It also helps determine the source of your pain. If you return a positive response to two different diagnostic blocks, your doctor can use radiofrequency ablation to ablate the medial branch nerves. Radiofrequency ablation can help reduce pain and improve function for as long as 6 to 12 months. Before the procedure, your doctor will administer local anesthesia.

Since your nerves will regenerate eventually, you may need to go for subsequent procedures when the pain resurfaces after 6 to 12 months.

Physical therapy can strengthen your spine and reduce the pressure on the facet joints.

To summarise, facet joint syndrome is a condition that causes pain radiating from the facet joints. It becomes more common as you age. It causes different symptoms, including neck pain that affects the shoulders and upper back, stiffness or difficulty standing or rising from a chair, and pain that spreads to the thigh and hip. Your doctor can recommend different treatments, including physical therapy, anti-inflammatory medications, and radiofrequency ablation.


Related Articles

Leave a Comment