Most diagnostic injections include a fast acting local anesthetic that should generate immediate relief and only last for hours, plus a long acting anti-inflammatory agent that may take days to kick in and then last for days or weeks. The different interval of relief tells the doctor a lot. (Remember... I'm not a doctor... take everything I say with a huge grain of salt... yada yada yada)
Success of the diagnostic injections depend upon your pathology AND the ability to get the injectant where they want it to go. It's possible to miss and it's possible to get an accurate injection and still get a false negative because of scar tissue that keeps the injectant from flowing as anticipated.
There can also be false positives from the injectantant providing relief from a location that is not the intended target of the injection.
While they are not perfect, they CAN shed a lot of light on our problems. Goot luck CindyLou... ask the doc about what you learn here. Tell us what he says.
Mark
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