what's after epidurals?

Hello everyone,
I'm still pretty new to this site. So far, for my lumbar spine I've had two rounds of epidural facet joint injections. The first ones lasted for about a year. Totally took care of the nerve pain (not sciatic, but another nerve) but when they wore off, the pain was burning/grinding across the whole lower back. Second set of injections were done on both sides this time, but have only given me relief for about 4 months and I am having the same burning/grinding again. I was not given any excercises to do. Degenerative discs is what I was told with neural foraminal narrowing. Any suggestions?

Welcome to the forum, pitmom. You sure have gone through the mixer.

Since the facet joint injections worked, nerve ablation should also. It should last longer. My first set lasted over a year. It's just about like the facet joint injections. I don't find them any worse.

The nerve coverings do grow back eventually, but ablations can be repeated just like the injections are. They usually do one side at a time. Ablation is sometimes called "burning" the nerve. They don't actually burn the nerve, only heat the covering.

There is no real cure. Ablations are better than surgery. Discs usually shrink and stop hurting. The trick is to stop the pain for a couple of years while waiting for this to happen.