Lumbar facet joints are small joints a little larger than the size of a thumbnail on the back of your spine. They provide stability and guide motion in your lower back. If the joints may cause pain in your lower back, abdomen, buttocks groin or legs.

Facet-joint injections are commonly used to determine what is causing back pain. Facet-joint injections help your physician determine the cause of your back pain, but they may not provide long-term relief from the pain. These injections eliminate pain temporarily by filling the facet joint with an anesthetic medicine that numbs the facet joint, the ligaments and joint capsule around the facet joint.

By placing numbing medicine into the joint, the amount of immediate pain relief you experience will help confirm the joint as a source of pain. The temporary relief of the numbing medicine also may better allow a chiropractor or physical therapist to treat that joint. In addition, time-release cortisone will help reduce any inflammation that you may have in your joint(s).